[Mork]

I am trying to learn to use Ant and am confused as to whether MyEclipse actually has an Ant editor, runner, and whatever else already installed.

I did a search for “Eclipse Ant plug-in”, but got results that didn’t seem exactly what I thought (“AntView”?).

If MyEclipse does have ant support, I’m not sure how to use it.

If MyEclipse has ant support built in, does it help automate some of the drudgery with Ant?

Thanks.

M

[Scott Anderson]

Mork,

Yep, Ant support is “in there”. What might be confusing you is that the editor framework determines what editor to open based on file content, not just the extension. What that means is that it “recognizes” Ant build files even though they have a .xml extension, whatever they’re named and that Open with… > Ant Editor should be available. So, if you have an Ant build file with any file name, the Ant editor will be available to edit it. However, to create a new Ant file, you need to use File > New > Other > General > File and name it ‘build.xml’. You’ll notice that it will open in the Ant editor and will provide content assist to help write your Ant file. To run your Ant file, just right-click on it in the Package Explorer view and select Run As… > Ant Build.

[jhm]

There is also an AntView (as part of Eclipse): Window > Show View > Other > Ant::Ant

You could drag&drop a buildfile onto that view and you’ll get the targets. A doubleclick on the target would run that.

[Scott Anderson]

Nice tip! Thanks for sharing it.

[Author]

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