Getting_Started_with_MSP

This section explains how to get the Eclipse IDE configured and how to check out the Mars Simulation Project from SVN.

Development Tools

You need the following tools and plugins:

• Eclipse IDE/SDK version 4.5.2 / 4.6 or e(fx)clipse 2.3
• Subclipse and/or Subversive (see http://subclipse.tigris.org/ https://eclipse.org/subversive/index.php)
• m2eclipse (see http://www.eclipse.org/m2e/)

Step-by-Step Instructions

APPROACH 1

1. Download your prefered Eclipse package for your platform at https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/. "Eclipse IDE for Java Developers" is the most lightweight package. However you may prefer "Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers" instead since it comes with m2e preinstalled.

2. Unzip to a desired directory in your hard drive. Click eclipse.exe to start eclipse. Define the location of your workspace.

3. At the top menu, choose "Help", "Install New Software" to manually install the needed plugins software

   

4. Type in the following 2 urls at the textfield "Work with:" and click Add to look for these 2 required items

   

   a. Subclipse: http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.12.x

   Note: you may prefer to go to http://subclipse.tigris.org/servlets/ProjectProcess?pageID=p4wYuA to look for the most current version or the version of your choice.
   

   

   b. Maven Integration for Eclipse (m2e): http://download.eclipse.org/technology/m2e/releases/1.7/

   Note: you may prefer to go to http://download.eclipse.org/technology/m2e/releases/ to look for the most current version or the version of your choice.
   

   

5. Note that for each software, the update manager calculates its dependencies and offers you a list of features to install. Depending on your eclipse setup, when installing Subclipse, some other components of subversion may be required.

6. Select the needed item and click the 'Next >' button.

APPROACH 2

1. Download your prefered Eclipse package for your platform at https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/. Unzip to a desired directory in your hard drive. Click eclipse.exe to start eclipse. Define the location of your workspace.

2. At the top menu, choose "Help" and "Eclipse Marketplace"

3. In Eclipse Marketplace, look for Subclipse 1.10.13 and Maven Integration for Eclipse 1.5 and click install

1. If you want to install "Subversive - SVN Team Provider 3.0.0", instead of Subclipse, you may have to experiment with choosing a compatible subversive connector to make it work.

APPROACH 3

Alternatively, you may prefer to use e(fx)clipse with subversion, subclipse and m2eclipse plugins already integrated to work correctly for MSP without having to trudged through tedious steps in Approach 1 & 2.

1. Go to http://downloads.efxclipse.bestsolution.at/downloads/nightly/sdk/ and download the platform OS version of your choice.

   e.g. for Windows OS, you may want to download eclipse-SDK-4.5.2-win32-x86_64-distro-2.3.0-SNAPSHOT.zip

2. Unzip to a desired directory in your hard drive. Click eclipse.exe to start e(fx)clipse. Define the location of your workspace.

    Note: as in any prerelease version of eclipse or customized version of eclipse that is tailored to a specific development environment, certain features may have been disabled. For instance, the Eclipse Marketplace is NOT available in e(fx)clipse.
   

Check out "mars-sim" project

Regardless the approach you have used above, you will need to check out mars-sim in SVN and import its mavenized version:

1. At the top menu, choose "Window", "Perspective", "Open Perspective", "Other" and choose "SVN Repository Exploring" in order to open up a SVN Repositories side panel.
2. Click the icon button with tooltip showing "Add SVN Repository". In the dialog box, at the "Url" textfield, type in http://svn.code.sf.net/p/mars-sim/code and click Finish to proceed.
3. Click on right arrow head to open up the http://svn.code.sf.net/p/mars-sim/code repository. Click on "trunk". Highlight "mars-sim". Right-click "mars-sim" to open a pop-up menu. Choose "Checkout" and click Finish to proceed.
   
4. Look for Java or Java EE Perspective under Window, Choose Perspective > Open Perspective > Other. In the popup panel called "Open Perspective", choose Java (default) to open the Project/Package Explorer.
   
   
5. Now you should see "mars-sim[trunk/mars-sim]" right under the word Project/Package Explorer.
   
6. Because mars-sim is a multi-module mavenized project, you will have to import Existing Maven Modules into Eclipse. In the Project/Package Explorer, right click "mars-sim". In the pop-up menu, choose "Import".
   
7. In the dialog, click to open Maven, choose "Existing Maven Projects" within. Click Next.
   
8. Now your dialog should look like the following screenshot. Click Finish to process with the import
   
9. Your Package Explorer should now have all five modules loaded, in addition to the initial "mars-sim[trunk/mars-sim]" that you previously checked out from SVN.

10. Finally, you are done with the setup. To run mars-sim in eclipse, open the "mar-sim-main" module and right click on "MarsProjectFX new.launch" and choose "Run As", "1 MarsProjectFX new" and proceed. Viola! you are running mars-sim in eclipse.

    Note 1: "MarsProjectFX new.launch" is simply an eclipse configuration launcher. Running it will simply add the "-new" argument/switch when running the main() in MarsProjectFX.java.

    Note 2: MarsProjectFX.java should not be run by itself.

    Note 3: after you compiled mars-sim under maven, MarsProjectStarter.java and its main() will replace the role of that eclipse launcher to become the main entry point of mar-sim.