Home » Eclipse Projects » Eclipse Platform » Uninstalling plugins leaves junk in workbench.xml
| Uninstalling plugins leaves junk in workbench.xml [message #275234] |
Fri, 05 November 2004 03:54  |
Eclipse User |
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Hi all,
unless there's is a method to uninstall a plugin, i'm not aware of, it
looks that eclipse is suffering the same "junk filling registry" syndrome
of windoze.
Simply deleting the plugin from the plugins directory leaves in the
workbench.xml all the coolItem, actionSet and whatever else tags the
plugin created at install time.
Is there a way to make a clean uninstallation or a cleanup to get rid of
those tags, other than manually deleting them, so that each time eclipse
starts doesn't complain it is not able to find the related action sets?
Regards, Gabriele.
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| Re: Uninstalling plugins leaves junk in workbench.xml [message #275293 is a reply to message #275234] |
Fri, 05 November 2004 14:33  |
| Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: Chris_Laffra.ca.ibm.com
If you package your plugins in a feature, and use the Update Manager no junk
is created/left.
See http://eclipsefaq.org , Chapter 4, in particular, FAQ 89.
Chris
"Gabriele Garuglieri" <gabriele.garuglieri@infoblu.it> wrote in message
news:cmff43$8pc$1@eclipse.org...
> Hi all,
> unless there's is a method to uninstall a plugin, i'm not aware of, it
> looks that eclipse is suffering the same "junk filling registry" syndrome
> of windoze.
>
> Simply deleting the plugin from the plugins directory leaves in the
> workbench.xml all the coolItem, actionSet and whatever else tags the
> plugin created at install time.
>
> Is there a way to make a clean uninstallation or a cleanup to get rid of
> those tags, other than manually deleting them, so that each time eclipse
> starts doesn't complain it is not able to find the related action sets?
>
> Regards, Gabriele.
>
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| Re: Uninstalling plugins leaves junk in workbench.xml [message #275386 is a reply to message #275293] |
Mon, 08 November 2004 03:43 |
| Eclipse User |
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Chris Laffra wrote:
> If you package your plugins in a feature, and use the Update Manager no junk
> is created/left.
> See http://eclipsefaq.org , Chapter 4, in particular, FAQ 89.
> Chris
First of all thank you for pointing me to that source of information, i
didn't know that and i think is worth having a copy of it here in office.
Unfortunately this doesn't solve my problem. It's not my plugins that are
causing problems, i wish i had time to write some, but my job schedule
doesn't leave me time other than to write bug reports to you :)
It's the plugin downloaded from internet, only a small percentage of them
are packaged as features.
Right now i keep two different installations of eclipse, one for
production work and one for experimenting with new plugins, because when
you discover that the new plugin is not worth having or is broken and you
unistall it, too often leaves junk in the configuration files that is not
tolerable in a production evironment.
But maintaining two installations is bothersome and i was wondering if
there is a more efficient and clean method.
I think eclipse should provide a method to install/unistall plugins and
all their artifacts even if they are not packaged as features.
Gabriele
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| Re: Uninstalling plugins leaves junk in workbench.xml [message #275411 is a reply to message #275386] |
Mon, 08 November 2004 10:18 |
| Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: Chris_Laffra.ca.ibm.com
Creating a feature for a given set of plugins and the
corresponding update site is very easy.
You do not have to write any code. The Eclipse PDE
has excellent support for this.
See: http://www.eclipsefaq.org/chris/faq/html/faq89.html
and http://www.eclipsefaq.org/chris/faq/html/faq92.html
Packaging up those external plugins into a feature
with meaningful names is 100% worth the effort.
Installing/uninstalling plugins is not supported. You can
only do this manually, with all the side-effects you
describe below.
As an alternative, you may consider storing the plugins
in a separate directory and then link to them through
a "product link":
http://www.eclipsefaq.org/chris/faq/html/faq32.html
Chris
"Gabriele Garuglieri" <gabriele.garuglieri@infoblu.it> wrote in message
news:cmnbkb$5n7$1@eclipse.org...
> Chris Laffra wrote:
>
> > If you package your plugins in a feature, and use the Update Manager no
junk
> > is created/left.
>
> > See http://eclipsefaq.org , Chapter 4, in particular, FAQ 89.
>
> > Chris
>
> First of all thank you for pointing me to that source of information, i
> didn't know that and i think is worth having a copy of it here in office.
>
> Unfortunately this doesn't solve my problem. It's not my plugins that are
> causing problems, i wish i had time to write some, but my job schedule
> doesn't leave me time other than to write bug reports to you :)
> It's the plugin downloaded from internet, only a small percentage of them
> are packaged as features.
>
> Right now i keep two different installations of eclipse, one for
> production work and one for experimenting with new plugins, because when
> you discover that the new plugin is not worth having or is broken and you
> unistall it, too often leaves junk in the configuration files that is not
> tolerable in a production evironment.
>
> But maintaining two installations is bothersome and i was wondering if
> there is a more efficient and clean method.
>
> I think eclipse should provide a method to install/unistall plugins and
> all their artifacts even if they are not packaged as features.
>
> Gabriele
>
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| Re: Uninstalling plugins leaves junk in workbench.xml [message #275506 is a reply to message #275386] |
Mon, 08 November 2004 21:57 |
| Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: varavamu.yahoo.com
hi Gabriele,
I too experiment with a lot of plugins and find some to not suit my
needs - and as you described, I delete them. The way I do this is (and
which I think is what you also do) is:
1) Shutdown eclipse
2) Use windows explorer to navigate to the install directory
3) manually delete the plugins that I want to "uninstall".
As you said - this still leaves any preferences from that plugin. To
remove these (now bogus) preferences, I navigate, again using windows
explorer, to
<eclipseInstallDirectory> \workspace\.metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.core.runtime\.sett ings
and in here, I manually delete the .prefs file related to the plugin(s)
that I just "uninstalled".
The next time that I start eclipse, the preferences are no longer
present to clutter up eclipse.
One more point: if the plugin installed any code templates, I have to do
the following steps:
1) Start Eclipse
2) Go Windows > Preferences > Java > Editor > templates.
3) Select all templates
4) Use the "Export" button on the right hand side of the templates table
to export to some file (say exportedTemplates.xml)
5) Use the "Restore defaults" button at the bottom of the pref page to
restore all templates to the default (out-of-the-box eclipse state).
6) Shutdown eclipse (else templates are still in memory)
7) Hand edit the exportedTemplates.xml file, and manually remove the
templates that I no longer want. (Before doing this step, its usually a
good idea to make a backup copy of this file).
8) Startup eclipse, and go back to the templates pref page.
9) Use the "Import" button to restore my old templates - sans the ones
that I dont want anymore.
Cleaning the templates is a bit of trouble - but it gets the job done.
Finally (and I am not sure whether there are any more steps - but these
are all that I could find): Cleaning the "File Associations" in Window >
Preferences > Workbench. When the plugins are not present, eclipse
automatically removes the file association for editors, but the entry in
the file associations table is left behind, and so if the plugin created
an entry that was not previously present, this can be considered "junk",
and removed using the "Remove" button near the top of the pref page.
I also have a DOS batch file that I use to create a zipped backup of my
configuration and workspace directories - and I use this to create a
backup in case something went wrong. But till now, I have not had to use
the backup files. In case you are interested, I can mail it to you.
Hope that helps,
Vijay
Gabriele Garuglieri wrote:
> Chris Laffra wrote:
>
>> If you package your plugins in a feature, and use the Update Manager
>> no junk
>> is created/left.
>
>
>> See http://eclipsefaq.org , Chapter 4, in particular, FAQ 89.
>
>
>> Chris
>
>
> First of all thank you for pointing me to that source of information, i
> didn't know that and i think is worth having a copy of it here in office.
>
> Unfortunately this doesn't solve my problem. It's not my plugins that
> are causing problems, i wish i had time to write some, but my job
> schedule doesn't leave me time other than to write bug reports to you :)
> It's the plugin downloaded from internet, only a small percentage of
> them are packaged as features.
>
> Right now i keep two different installations of eclipse, one for
> production work and one for experimenting with new plugins, because when
> you discover that the new plugin is not worth having or is broken and
> you unistall it, too often leaves junk in the configuration files that
> is not tolerable in a production evironment.
>
> But maintaining two installations is bothersome and i was wondering if
> there is a more efficient and clean method.
>
> I think eclipse should provide a method to install/unistall plugins and
> all their artifacts even if they are not packaged as features.
>
> Gabriele
>
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| Re: Uninstalling plugins leaves junk in workbench.xml [message #275625 is a reply to message #275506] |
Wed, 10 November 2004 02:06 |
| Eclipse User |
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Hi Vijay,
more or less that's what i was doing myself, but it was taking too much
time and was too error prone.
So now i prefere cloning a clean installation (i never put any plugins in
eclipse installation tree, i keep them in separate directories), start
with a fresh workspace, import a couple of dummy projects i keep for that
reason and experiment there.
Then in case of problems i can safely thrash everything.
The problems arise when i want to get rid of some plugin in the production
environment...
But, as soon as i have a bit of spare time, i want to experiment the way
that Chris wrote before. It looks to be easy to package plugins as a
feature, and if it's true that Update Manager takes care of all the
cleanup, then all problems should be solved.
Cheers, Gabriele.
Vijay Aravamudhan wrote:
> hi Gabriele,
> I too experiment with a lot of plugins and find some to not suit my
> needs - and as you described, I delete them. The way I do this is (and
> which I think is what you also do) is:
> 1) Shutdown eclipse
> 2) Use windows explorer to navigate to the install directory
> 3) manually delete the plugins that I want to "uninstall".
> As you said - this still leaves any preferences from that plugin. To
> remove these (now bogus) preferences, I navigate, again using windows
> explorer, to
>
<eclipseInstallDirectory>workspace.metadata.pluginsorg.eclipse.core.runtime.settings
> and in here, I manually delete the .prefs file related to the plugin(s)
> that I just "uninstalled".
> The next time that I start eclipse, the preferences are no longer
> present to clutter up eclipse.
> One more point: if the plugin installed any code templates, I have to do
> the following steps:
> 1) Start Eclipse
> 2) Go Windows > Preferences > Java > Editor > templates.
> 3) Select all templates
> 4) Use the "Export" button on the right hand side of the templates table
> to export to some file (say exportedTemplates.xml)
> 5) Use the "Restore defaults" button at the bottom of the pref page to
> restore all templates to the default (out-of-the-box eclipse state).
> 6) Shutdown eclipse (else templates are still in memory)
> 7) Hand edit the exportedTemplates.xml file, and manually remove the
> templates that I no longer want. (Before doing this step, its usually a
> good idea to make a backup copy of this file).
> 8) Startup eclipse, and go back to the templates pref page.
> 9) Use the "Import" button to restore my old templates - sans the ones
> that I dont want anymore.
> Cleaning the templates is a bit of trouble - but it gets the job done.
> Finally (and I am not sure whether there are any more steps - but these
> are all that I could find): Cleaning the "File Associations" in Window >
> Preferences > Workbench. When the plugins are not present, eclipse
> automatically removes the file association for editors, but the entry in
> the file associations table is left behind, and so if the plugin created
> an entry that was not previously present, this can be considered "junk",
> and removed using the "Remove" button near the top of the pref page.
> I also have a DOS batch file that I use to create a zipped backup of my
> configuration and workspace directories - and I use this to create a
> backup in case something went wrong. But till now, I have not had to use
> the backup files. In case you are interested, I can mail it to you.
> Hope that helps,
> Vijay
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