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Basic Software Development with Eclipse

In Lab 1 you learned Eclipse basics; today you'll learn about more advanced software development features:

  • Using the type hierarchy & call hierarchy
  • Introduction to refactoring
  • Using Eclipse's debugger
Initial Setup

We'll be working with Freemind, a medium-sized (50 KLOC) open source application. You will need 65 MB of available space (or find a partner who does). On the composer machines, you should have no more than 37000 KB used (quota -v).

Setup instructions for composer machines (can be adapted to other OS's):

  1. Download & extract Freemind
    • Download freemind-src-0.9.0_RC_4.tar.gz from sourceforge
    • Open a terminal and navigate to the file (most likely in 'Desktop')
    • Unzip & untar (gunzip freemind-src-0.9.0_RC_4.tar.gz; tar xvf freemind-src-0.9.0_RC_4.tar)
    • If space is tight, delete the tar file once extracted (rm freemind-src-0.9.0_RC_4.tar)
  2. Import Freemind into Eclipse
    • open eclipse (eclipse &)
    • Select File > New > Java Project
    • Name the project “freemind”, and select “create from existing source”
    • Browse to your freemind folder (e.g., $USER_HOME/Desktop/freemind)

  • Select “finish”, and wait for “Building workspace” to finish in the bottom right of the screen.
Running Freemind

Freemind is mind mapping software often used for knowledge and content management. It's a hierarchical editor that supports “folding”–that is, collapsing and expanding sections of the hierarchy. Today we'll focus on understanding how the folding functionality is implemented.

The easiest way to understand the concept of folding is to try it out:

  1. In the package explorer, right click on the freemind folder & select “Run As > Java Application”
  2. Select “freemind.main.FreemindStarter” as the main class to execute (ignore errors written to console)

  1. Create a new mind map about Software Engineering:
    • Add children nodes by going to “Insert > New Child Node”, hitting the “insert” key, or selecting the lightbulb
    • Add at least 5 nodes, with some at least 3 levels deep
    • Save the mind map
  2. Select a middle node (not leaf or root) and attempt to fold it. There are 3 ways to change a node's folding status:
    • click the node
    • hit space bar
    • right click and select “toggle folded”
    • select “Navigate > Toggle Folded” in the menu

Using the type & call hierarchy to understand code

Basic Refactoring

Debugging in Eclipse

hill/275.1255470917.txt.gz · Last modified: 2009/10/13 17:55 by hill
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