Eclipse webtools

From the “Eclipse Tips – September 1 (2004)” a short review:

WTP (Web Tools Project) provides six major toolsets for the following areas: database
management, J2EE development, server deployment, source editing, XML
tooling, and Web Services.
I spent half a day playing with WTP. I began by using WTP’s Web
project creation wizard. I then created a simple JSP and deployed it
using WTP server features. The Web project creation wizard defaults
to create root directories of JavaSource and WebContent — similar to
those in WebSphere Studio Application Developer (WSAD). The
properties editor for the Web project provides settings that are also
very similar to those of WSAD. I like this trend of WSAD similarities
because WSAD is an excellent commercial Eclipse product and we can
now get similar features in an open source plug-in.
The JSP editor worked well, but keep in mind that I didn’t push the
editor’s functionality much. Once I was done writing a simple JSP, I
used WTP’s server features to deploy the project. WTP’s server
perspective, again, looks much like WSAD’s server perspective. First
you create a server project and then create server instances in that
project. The server instances are displayed in a view. From that
view, you can select an instance and add J2EE projects to that
instance. WTP initially has support for six versions of Tomcat,
including the ones that I had installed on my Linux workstation, 4.1
and 5.0. I had problems with the Tomcat 4.1 deployment features, but
5.0 worked much better. Note, though, that I did have issues with the
deployment of a Struts project to Tomcat 5.0 (but I didn’t spend much
time attempting to resolve that problem).
I also reviewed WTP’s database views. The database views worked all
right, but I didn’t find them as useful as those provided with the
SQL Explorer plug-in, which was covered in the August 4 issue of
Eclipse Tips.
All in all, I’m greatly impressed with WTP, especially since it has
only been available for a month or so. Also note that I only tested a
small portion of WTP’s feature set. For instance, I didn’t test the
EJB or Web Service wizards. For my current production development,
I’ve turned off the use of WTP and I’m back to using MyEclipse, but
every month or so I’ll download WTP’s latest, give it a whirl, and
let you know how it’s looking.