Published on 05 Apr 2018
For a long time Payara, a derivative of GlassFish, could be used in Eclipse using the Oracle GlassFish Tools. With the release of Payara 5, a few problems prevented the plug-in from recognizing Payara 5, meaning Payara 5 couldn’t really be used in Eclipse. A new set of tools again makes it possible to use Payara 5 with Eclipse, along with other improvements.
Introducing: Payara Tools
Oracle recently donated the GlassFish Tools to the Eclipse Foundation, and based on those tools, we built our own version - aptly called Payara Tools. The initial development version is similar to GlassFish Tools but Payara Tools do have a few small improvements already. Naturally, it supports Payara 5, but it now also lets you select either the home folder where Payara Server was unzipped (e.g. “payara5”), or as in GlassFish Tools, the Glassfish subfolder (e.g. “payara5/glassfish”).
Payara Tools Will Stop a Server While Starting
A somewhat bigger improvement is that it allows a starting and hanging server to be stopped. In GlassFish Tools, the stop button in the progress view was there, but it wasn’t actually implemented in code, so pressing it would not do anything. One had to wait for the startup timeout to elapse. Payara Tools has implemented the code needed to stop a server while starting. Additionally, Payara Tools also lets Eclipse detect sooner that a server instance has been stopped when using the stop button in the server view. In comparison, GlassFish Tools would let the so-called server status job detect this, which only runs every 5 seconds. In Payara Tools, this check is pretty much instant.
Hi-dpi Icons for Sharper Images
Finally, the plug-in mostly uses hi-dpi icons where supported by Eclipse, so people with hi-dpi screens (for instance, retina screens on macOS) will get to see icons that look quite sharp compared to the older ones.
Upcoming Payara Tools Features
It must be noted that this is a first cut development release and no exhaustive testing has been done yet. Also, the first cut only has a couple of improvements. The plan is to add more Payara specifics features in the first stable release, such as:
- Payara Micro Support
- Showing the domain.xml and other config files in the IDE
- Shortcuts to quickly navigate from a deployed application in the servers view to the corresponding source project
- … and more.
How to Install Payara Tools
The current development build can be installed using the following update URL and the instructions outlined below:
- Open Eclipse and select the Install New Software menu item under the Help menu.
- Copy and paste the following URL into the 'Work with' text box, then press ENTER: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/payara/Payara_PatchedProjects/eclipse/payaratools/oxygen/development
Once the repository is loaded, the available features should show up in the table.
Select the desired features and follow the wizard to install them.
The full instructions for installation can be read here as well: https://cdn.rawgit.com/payara/Payara_PatchedProjects/eclipse/payaratools/oxygen/development/
Known Issues with the Plug-in
Please be aware that Payara Server 5.181 as downloaded from the download page may not work as intended when initially started but will work fine the second time. This is already fixed in the latest snapshot builds which can be found at https://www.payara.fish/software/downloads/all-downloads/ .
The plug-in currently may not work correctly if the Payara Platform is installed on Windows using a path that has a space in it. Avoid problems by installing the Payara Platform in a path that doesn't have a space in it.
