VirtualProject

What is it?

A "virtual project" is an Eclipse project created by the Debugger for every debug session (launch) and deleted once the debug session is over. Virtual projects can be found among other regular projects. Since release 0.2.0, the virtual project icon is decorated by a small Chromium logo. A virtual project serves as a container for JavaScript scripts downloaded from a remote VM. Those scripts are never saved on disk and are forgotten when the virtual project is deleted.

Why do we need it?

For languages like C++ or Java, all source files reside in a developer's working directory. The JavaScript case is quite different: the entire source scripts collection (which includes scripts generated on the fly) can be found only inside a running JavaScript virtual machine (VM). That's why a JavaScript debugger has to download the scripts from a VM into Eclipse first. A virtual project is the way the Debugger presents them.

Virtual project vs. Workspace local files

A virtual project is useful because it contains all up-to-date sources, so you don't have to care about getting them from elsewhere. It also contains sources that are generated on the fly, and is irreplaceable in this aspect.

Unfortunately, a virtual project is not very useful for a JavaScript developer who may want to edit files, not only debug them. (Actually, scripts from virtual projects are editable, which is used for the live editing feature, but all changes are lost once the VM stops). In a more common setting, a developer will link a debug session to the workspace source files -- see feature description.

Note that a virtual project exists for any debug session, regardless of whether it has the workspace source files configured or not.