Installing the Eclipse Plugin

Note that new Eclipse releases can have compatibility problems. The most recent version we have tried this plugin with is: Eclipse 3.0. If you find that the plugin doesn't work on a later release, inform us.

You can install the eclipse plug-in either manually, or with the installer/updater system of Eclipse.

Installing manually

Visit http://sourceforge.net/projects/freemarker, and download the latest release of package eclipse-plugin. Extract the downloaded tar.gz into the plugins directory of Eclipse (so there will be 2 org.visigoths.freemarker* subdirectories), and then restart Eclipse.

To update the already installed version, just stop Eclipse, delete the two directories that were made when you have extracted the earlier tar.gz, and install the latest version as was explained above.

Once after the installation or after the update it's maybe good idea to start Eclipse from the command-line with the "clean" option: eclipse -clean

Installing with Eclipse installer/updater system

Eclipse has its own on-line plug-in installer/updater system. To install the FreeMarker plug-in, be connected to the Internet, start Eclipse and:

• If you use Eclipse 2.x:
  1. Open the Window menu, then Open Perspective -> Install/Update
  2. Click with the right mouse button on the Feature Updates view, then select New -> Site Bookmark
  3. In the displayed dialog box, type "FreeMarker" for Name and "http://www.freemarker.org/eclipse/update" for URL. Leave the "Bookmark type" radio buttons on "Eclipse update site".
  4. Click Finish
  5. Open the tree node under the newly created update site named "FreeMarker", select the "FreeMarker X.Y.Z" feature, and install it using the Install now button in the preview pane.
• If you use Eclipse 3.x:
  1. Help -> Software updates -> Find and install....
  2. Choose "Search for new features to install".
  3. Click Add Update Site..., and type "FreeMarker" for Name and "http://www.freemarker.org/eclipse/update" for URL.
  4. Check the box of the "FreeMarker" feature.
  5. "Next"-s until it is installed...

From now on, you have syntax highlight, syntax error reporting, and outline view for .ftl files. (If for some reason Eclipse doesn't open *.ftl files with FreeMarker plugin, you have to associate *.ftl with the Freemarker Editor manually. For this use Window -> Preferences -> General -> Editors -> File Associations in Eclipse. Also in the tree views like the Resource Navigator or Package Explorer you can right-click on a file and choose "Open with..." and then "Freemarker Editor", however this decision will apply to that single file only.)

If you already have a previous version installed, do the following:

• If you use Eclipse 2.x:
  1. Open the Window menu, then Open Perspective -> Install/Update
  2. In the Feature Updates view, open the tree node under the already existing update site named "FreeMarker", select the "FreeMarker X.Y.Z" feature, and install it using the Update Now button in the preview pane.
• If you use Eclipse 3.x:
  1. Help -> Software updates -> Manage Configuration....
  2. Find the FreeMarker feature in the tree, and click Scan for Updates...

Important note regarding false errors in templates

The included freemarker.jar is often outdated; overwrite it with a newer version manually if you get error messages when using newer template language constructs in the edited template files.