Using SWT from CVS

*** NOTE: SWT has migrated its source to GIT. ***

SWT lives in Eclipse CVS at dev.eclipse.org.

Running with SWT from CVS takes a bit of work to set up for your platform. Here is a quick guide to help you get set up.

  1. First, set up the CVSROOT. Use File > Import... > CVS > Projects from CVS and enter the information for the Eclipse CVS server.

    Host: dev.eclipse.org, Repository Path: /cvsroot/eclipse, and User: anonymous

  2. Next, check out the org.eclipse.swt project, where all the Java code lives, along with the correct binary package for the DLLs from your platform.

    Specified modules: org.eclipse.swt, org.eclipse.swt.examples, org.eclipse.swt.gtk.linux.x86

    Each platform has a module for the binaries categorized by toolkit, OS, and CPU architecture. Examples:

    Windows org.eclipse.swt.win32.win32.x86
    Mac OS X org.eclipse.swt.cocoa.macosx
    Linux GTK org.eclipse.swt.gtk.linux.x86
    Linux Motif org.eclipse.swt.motif.linux.x86

    You may also want to check out the org.eclipse.swt.examples and org.eclipse.swt.snippets projects.

  3. SWT has a different Eclipse .classpath file for each platform, so we need to set up Eclipse to use the right one. To do this we first show the Navigator view (Window > Show View > Navigator).

  4. Next, we expand org.eclipse.swt and find the .classpath_xxx file for our platform and copy it to a file named .classpath.

    Name Conflict dialog with .classpath in the New Name field

  5. After changing a .classpath file, it's usually a good idea to clean the projects that depend on it to make sure everyone is cool.
    (Note that if you are building for a 64-bit platform, there is an extra step needed. Please see this FAQ for details).

    Using Project > Clean... to recompile

  6. We're ready to go! To test our checkout, let's find an SWT application to run. How about the ControlExample.

    org.eclipse.swt.examples.controlexample.ControlExample in the Package Explorer view

  7. After we've selected the ControlExample.java file, we can run it using Run > Run As > Java Application.

    Shift+Alt+X J will also run the selected Java application

And there you go!