Eclipse TeXlipse™

The TeXlipse plugin for Eclipse provides support for LaTeX projects. It is primarily aimed at users who already know the basics about LaTeX, newbies will surely find it useful but also a steeper learning curve. The following main features are offered:

• Syntax highlighting
• Document outline
• Code folding
• Templates
• Build support, also partial building
• Annotations for errors (while editing)
• Content assist (completion of commands and references)
• Easy navigation with F3
• Outline of the current file and the full project
• Spell checking
• Menu with common LaTeX math symbols
• BibTeX editor and BibTeX-support
• BibLaTeX support
• Line wrapping
• Table editor
• Support for several platforms (Windows, Linux, OS X)
• Optional: Live PDF preview with Pdf4Eclipse
• Optional: Bibsonomy integration with TeXlipseBibSonomyExtension
• ...and many more

In other words, TeXlipse includes quite a complete set of features for day-to-day editing tasks. This manual explains the use of these features in detail, but please go ahead and explore TeXlipse!

Getting Started

Setting up a TeXlipse development environment

We are using Eclipse as development IDE and using the latest 2020-20 release as TeXlipse target platform.

Using the TeXlipse development Oomph setup

This approach allows you to start almost from scratch (with JDK 11 (or newer) and a Git client installed already), and to obtain a ready-for-use TeXlipse development environment including :

• an OSGi / Eclipse RCP development environment
• plugins to work with target platform definitions.
• Java code formatting preferences as defined in our Coding Style

This involves following steps :

1. Download and start the Eclipse Installer.
2. Within the wizard switch to advanced mode by selecting it in the burger menu of the upper right corner, then select your desired Eclipse installation package e.g. Eclipse IDE for Eclipse Committers from the product list, set your current Java installation folder as well as 32 Bit or 64 Bit dependent on your Java installation and click next.
3. Select Eclipse Texlipse from the list of projects and click next.
4. Within the Variables window activate Show all variables in the bottom left corner. In the appearing fields, set your desired Installation folder name as well as your Root install folder, click next and confirm the listed execution tasks by pressing the finish button. Let the installer do its thing to download the Eclipse IDE package and extra plugins and to start your new Eclipse instance.
5. When Eclipse is starting, you will see a progress indication at the bottom right for the startup tasks of the Oomph setup for TeXlipse. This will clone the TeXlipse repository.
6. In case your project presentation inside your Project Explorer is set to flat, there should be four projects within your IDE. Open the default.target inside your texlipse project and update the plugins listed there. This will take a while. After it has been updated successfully press Set as Active Target Platform and save the file.
7. To start an Texlipse instance e.g. for testing changes, open the build.properties inside the org.eclipse.texlipse project and press the play button (Launch an Eclipse application) in the upper right corner. A new Eclipse instance will be started, where you can switch to the LaTeX perspective.

Manual setup

Use Eclipse to check out the repository.

1. Install Eclipse IDE for Committers. Other versions may work.
2. Start Eclipse. Create a new workspace. You may need to close the Welcome tab by clicking on the X.
3. Open Window > Show View > Other > Git > Git Repositories
4. Click on Clone a Git repository
5. Click on Clone URI, then Next
6. Enter the URI https://github.com/eclipse/texlipse/
7. In the Branch Selection window, keep the default of the Master branch and click Next.
8. In the Local Destination window, select Finish.

Build your own Eclipse TeXlipse with the TeXlipse development environment

1. Run the texlipse/pom.xml as Maven build by setting the goal to clean install. Within the other projects of the workspace a target folder will be created. In case of an error concerning the org.eclipse.license.feature.group please update the version number provided in the source tab of the default.target.
2. The Maven build creates an update site, which can be used within a fresh Eclipse installation e.g. Eclipse IDE for Eclipse Committers. Open the Install new software site and add the file .../texlipse/org.eclipse.texlipse-site/target/org.eclipse.texlipse-2.0.3.201911021750.zip as new repository.
3. Install the new software LaTeX support for Eclipse. After Eclipse restart you can switch to the LaTeX perspective.

Resources

• The official TeXlipse project page
• The Eclipse Science working group
• Contribution guide

License

EPL v1.0 see LICENSE file.

Eclipse TeXlipse, Eclipse, the Eclipse logo, and the Eclipse TeXlipse project logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of The Eclipse Foundation in the United States and/or other countries.