Sharing Eclipse directory on Dropbox between Windows and Mac OS X

Question

This question was close to mine, but not quite.

I have a Windows desktop and a MacBook Pro. I'd like to be able to keep my Eclipse workspace in my Dropbox folder. The problem is that many project settings change between platforms: references to JREs, JDKs, and other libs.

Every discussion I've seen of this problem seems to suggest taking advantage of the source control system's ignore functionality, so that such-and-such file remains local-only and thus able to remain platform-specific. But when you're working with a real single shared folder, that class of solution doesn't apply.

Have you had luck working with a Java Eclipse project living in a single folder shared over the network, cross-platform?

Answer 1

I have my Eclipse workspace inside Dropbox with all my project folders within, but use the new-ish "Selective Sync" feature of Dropbox to make sure that the .metadata folder is not synced.

This means my Mac and Windows machines have their own .metadata folders but the project folders remain in sync.

Seems to be working so far...

Answer 2

Use source control with individual workspaces. By doing it this way you lose the capability of two developers making changes to the same file. You also run a higher risk of people stepping on each other. With Subversion (or others) source control is free and gives you traceability.

Answer 3

Perhaps the way to have less problems is just to share the source folder, neither workspace settings nor bin folder.
Just put your source folder in Dropbox.

Create the project on site1 and then:
Right click over the project, choose properties
--> Java Build path --> Source tab
--> Link source button
Then create a link to your source folder in Dropbox and assign it a name (e.g. src2)

Make the same for site2.

All your source files must be in your share source folder in Dropbox.

Of course you must configure on each site the settings like libraries and other stuff but this task is less frequently and perhaps desirable because you have two different environments.

Answer 4

For anyone else having trouble getting this to work, try File->Import->General->File System. Be sure to select Create links in workspace from the Advanced options. Seems like the cleaner solution and you can keep using your usual workspace.