Eclipse IDE: install set of plugins

Question

I have a set of favorite Eclipse plugins, that I need to install every time I install new Eclipse. I would also like to have a way to install all those plugins in [semi-]aut

Answer 1

You can use a dropins directory to maintain plugins for your eclipse distribution.

The Eclipse platform ships with a default watched directory called dropins. The dropins folder is configured to be scanned during startup. Thus the dropins folder can be used much like the plugins directory was used in the past.

With this method every plugin can be maintained separately, and without modifying the original eclipse distribution:

If you have various different components being dropped in, and you want to keep them separate, you can add an additional layer of folders immediately below the dropins folder that contain traditional Eclipse extensions:

 eclipse/
   dropins/
     emf/
       eclipse/
         features/
         plugins/
     gef/
       eclipse/
         features/
         plugins/
     ... etc ...

where emf and gef may represent usual plugin structures.

There is also a way with which everyone in a group can refer to plugins stored in just one shared location.

This is using .link files placed in the dropins directory. The files contain path to the directory where a plugin is located. Look at this link.