Downloading, installing and configuring ''Eclipse''
Eclipse is an open-source, extendable development environment that supports an XML-aware editor. It is free for non-commercial use. It can be useful for creating, editing, and doing basic validation of XML document and XML Schema documents.
This page describes the process of downloading and installing the Eclipse editor on a Windows 7 machine. Other platforms follow similar procedures, with differences in the details. If you happen to know the details for a platform not already mentioned below, please do add them.
Note that all versions of Eclipse require the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), version 1.6 or better. Unless you're working on a machine more than about 3 years old that is not kept updated and patched, you likely will have this available to you.
Downloading the Right Package
The bare Eclipse editor doesn't provide much other than a framework to plug modules into. Unless you like rolling your own from scratch, you'll want one of the pre-packaged spins. The one that has most of what we want installed is called "Eclipse IDE for Java Developers" (not the one "for Java EE Developers"). Here's what the right download bar looks like for my Windows download:
You can download it from this page:
You will have to know whether you're on a 32-bit or 64-bit system. Select the corresponding download link on the right and a ZIP file will starting downloading.
- Windows Users
- Check your "System Information", which you can find by opening the Control Panel and looking under the "System and Security" listing for "System Information"
