Eclipse 3.5 (Galileo) released

Eclipse 3.5 (Galileo) was released last week. I’ve been using the Release Candidates for a while, but the official release seems like a good time to post about some of the new features available that have been of most use to me…

• An Open Implementation hyperlink has been added for overridable methods (you hold down the Ctrl key click on the overridable method to the list of implementing classes). I had been using the Implementors plugin to provide similar functionality, but it’s nice to finally have it as part of the standard release.
• The Java compare editor now supports new text editing features like move/copy/delete line and formatting, and updates its structure while you are typing inside the editor
• Introduction of a toString() generator
• Although the ability to generate hashCode and equals methods was already present, the compiler can now detect whether a class overrides one but not the other (hence breaking this golden rule from Effective Java)
• The compiler offers several new diagnostics, including finding dead code and warning when comparing identical values (e.g. would flag if var==var), along with suggested fixes.
• The Memory Analyzer tool now comes built in
• The JUnit4 version shipped with Eclipse has been updated to 4.5.

As well as some little but handy enhancements like:

• Double clicking on the beginning or end marker of a comment now selects the whole comment.

• In the headers of Javadoc hovers and the Javadoc view, references to other types and members are now links.

See also:

Eclipse 3.5 – New and noteworthy

http://www.infoq.com/news/2009/06/galileo

Tags: eclipse, ide