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Mylyn/FAQ

Recommended configuration

Recommendations for Mylar 0.5.0:

  • Package Explorer
    • Use flat layout in the Package Explorer (local pull down -> Layout -> Flat). Hierarchical layout is not supported.
    • Link the Package Explorer with the editor (toolbar -> Link with Editor). With Mylar applied this won't cause the jumping around problems it typically does.
    • Deselect the Referenced Libraries filter (local pull down -> Filters -> Referenced Libraries). With Mylar applied libraries won't blow up the tree.
    • Leave the General -> Appearance -> Java Type Indicator off. Since the type under the Java file is visible when Mylar is visible when Mylar is applied this information is redundant.
  • Editors
    • Turn comment folding on to reduce clutter when using auto folding (Preferences -> Java -> Editor -> Folding).
    • Turn off or increase the number of editors to leave open (Preferences -> General -> Editors -> Number of opened editors before closing). Since Mylar will manage the open editors with task activation, this number can be set higher or automatic closing disabled entirely.
    • If auto folding is used, the Outline view can be closed or made a fast view
  • Views
    • Outline: can keep closed for Java development, since the Package Explorer and folded signatures should provide enough context, and the in-place Outline (Ctrl+O) can be used when needed.
  • Team
    • Set Synchronize view to Change Sets mode (on 3.2: third toolbar button: select Change Sets; on 3.1: toggle toolbar button: Show Change Sets)
    • Use graphical CVS decorators only (Preferences -> Team -> CVS -> Label Decorations -> Text Decorations -> clear all but Project; Icon Decorations -> enable all). This helps reduce visual clutter.

Performance profile

The goal is for Mylar to have no noticeable effect on Eclipse's speed or memory usage, you do not need to increase the amount of memory Eclipse runs with to use Mylar, and any performance issue should be reported as a bug. The current performance profile is:

  1. Mylar only runs if a task is active, and has no impact on Eclipse if no task is active.
  2. Task context models have negligible memory overhead.
  3. When a task is active, additional view refresh is required to update the views based on interest model changes. This should not be noticeable on Windows where refresh is very quick, but could be more noticeable on other platforms.
  4. The time to activate a task context is dominated by the time it takes Eclipse to open the editors in the context. You can set the preference for how many editors to open in the Mylar preference page (e.g. setting to 1 will dramatically reduce activation time, but also remove the benefit of having open editors correspond to the task context). You can also turn off editor management entirely in the Mylar Tasks view pull-down.
  5. Eclipse startup is slowed down by (4) if a task is active when Eclipse is shut down.
  6. The low priority background searches that the Active Search view runs can be noticeable on slower machines.


Install Troubleshooting

For supported platforms and known limitations please see theDownload Page. Install/update failures can include:

Update manager failure

The update manager failed because it could not access the update site, or because it got confused about the configuration state of your Eclipse. First try updating again to see if the feature is accessible. If you are trying to update the JIRA connector you can also try de-selecting that feature in case the Tigris.org update site is not accessible. Using use "Search new features.." when installing can help avoid this problem. If that does not work see the feature configuration troubleshooting below.

Incompatible VM (e.g. JDK 1.4)

In this case you'll errors like the following in your log file. To check JDK version that Eclipse was launched with to to Help -> About Eclipse SDK -> Configuration Details and verify that the java.vm.version is 1.5. Mac users should refer to the last comment on bug 1163477 for instructions on how to change the 1.4 default.

   Root exception: java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError:
   org/eclipse/mylar/tasklist/MylarTasklistPlugin (Unsupported major.minor version 49.0)

If you are using JDK 1.6 on Eclipse 3.1 (not recommended) you must add the following line to your config.ini file:

   org.osgi.framework.executionenvironment=OSGi/Minimum-1.0,OSGi/Minimum-1.1,JRE-1.1,J2SE-1.2,
   J2SE-1.3,J2SE-1.4,J2SE-1.5,JavaSE-1.6

Incompatible version of Eclipse

Separate versions and update sites exist for Eclipse 3.1 and 3.2), in which case you may see errors like the following in your <workspace>/.metadata/.log file or in a Mylar view:

   java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.eclipse.ui.internal.dialogs.FilteredTree.getFilterControl()
   The activator org.eclipse.mylar.java.MylarJavaPlugin for bundle org.eclipse.mylar.java is invalid

Mylar feature configuration problem

Kf the above do not address the issue, the easiest thing to do is uninstall any old versions and update to the latest Mylar. Your tasks won't be lost, by default they are stored in the <workspace>/.mylar/tasklist.xml file which will be read next time Mylar starts correctly. First, uninstall the old version of Mylar using Help -> Software Updates -> Manage Configuration. You need to first Disable on all Mylar features by right-clicking them, allow Eclipse to restart after the last is disabled, and after restart. Then ensure that the 3rd toolbar button is pressed (figure below) so that you see the disabled features to uninstall, and Uninstall them using the popup menu. If you don't uninstall the the Update Manager will think that you have the latest and tell you that there are no updates. Note that manually removing the plug-ins and features can lead to Eclipse configuration errors. After uninstalling update Eclipse by adding the correct update site specified at on the download page, and after that automatically or manually updating will install the correct version.

Mylar-eclipse-manage-configuration.gif

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