Eclipse Shoots for the Moon with Luna Release

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

The Eclipse Foundation has released Eclipse Luna which includes official support for Java 8 in the Java development tools, Plug-in Development Tools, Object Teams, Eclipse Communication Framework, Maven integration, Xtext, Xtend, Web Tools Platform, and Memory Analyzer.

The Eclipse compiler includes language enhancements, search and refactoring, Quick Assist and Clean Up to migrate anonymous classes to lambda expressions and back, and new formatter options for lambdas.

Luna release highlights include:

- Full support for Java 8

- The workbench provides a new dark theme, split editors, line numbers on by default, reduced whitespace in default presentation, and ability to hide the "quick access" bar.

- Sirius allows architects to easily create their own graphical modeling workbenches by leveraging the Eclipse modeling technologies, including Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) and Graphical Modeling Framework (GMF)

- Equinox includes a full implementation of the R6 Core Framework as well as several compendium service implementations

- ECF's implementation of OSGi Remote Service/Remote Service Admin standard has been enhanced to use Java 8's CompleteableFuture for asynchronous remote services.

- Code Recommenders integrates the Snipmatch code snippet search engine and adds the ability to easily contribute new snippets to a shared repository.

- The new QVTi debugger extends the new OCL debugger.

- Paho provides open source implementations of open and standard messaging protocols that support current and emerging requirements of M2M integration with Web and

- Enterprise middleware and applications.

- EMF Forms as part of the EMF Client Platform provides a completely new way for the efficient development of form-based user interfaces.

- The UML 2.5 specification is now supported and UML diagrams may be validated against the OCL embedded in UML profiles.

- EcoreTools, the graphical modeler for Ecore, has been completely re-implemented based on Sirius and provides a nicer graphical design, support for documenting a model, specifying domain constraints and modeling Generic Types.

- The Eclipse workbench provides a new dark theme which includes a fitting syntax highlighter setting for the editor of several programming languages.

- TCF Terminal supports an integrated command-line view on Windows, Linux and Mac

- The PHP Development Tools come with support for PHP 5.5 and improved performance in the PHP editor. The "Eclipse for PHP Developers" package on the Eclipse download site provides an easier way to start developing PHP applications.

- The Gyrex 1.3 release now includes a distributed event bus which leverages the new full Websocket support for easier communication across nodes in a cluster.

- Memory Analyzer now analyzes heap dumps from Java 8, including the Java 8 collection classes.

- There is now a standalone C/C++ debugger application added to the CDT. It is now possible to debug an application via the command line and have an Eclipse UI debugger pop up.