Eclipse is much more than just an application; its plug-in architecture allows additional functionality to be installed. Plug-ins can be grouped into features, and both can be hosted on an update site. These allow functionality to be installed into an existing application, but it's also possible to build your own applications and products.
In this chapter, we shall:
Although functionality is provided in Eclipse through the use of plug-ins, typically individual plug-ins aren't installed separately. Historically, the Eclipse platform only dealt with features, a means of grouping a number of plug-ins together. Although the P2 update system (used in Eclipse since 3.5) is capable of installing plug-ins separately, almost all functionality used in Eclipse runtimes is installed through features.