How to speed up and setup the newest Eclipse for PHP developers with FTP support

This is my first article in English on my blog. I think, it is better write it in English than in Czech, because I couldn’t find it all together even in English.

This tutorial was made on Windows 7 with Eclipse 3.7 and for FTP support it is used Aptana Studio 2 Plugin for Eclipse. Aptana Studio is quite large plugin and I didn’t want it to use, because I like smaller plugins. But I didn’t find anything better than Aptana. There is also Aptana Studio 3 but I installed Aptana Studio 2. It has better FTP client and Aptana Studio 3 also installs support for Python, Ruby, etc. and it useless for us.

Installing of Eclipse for PHP developers with FTP support

1. Go to: http://eclipse.org/downloads/ and download Eclipse Classic 3.7. There used to be Eclipse bundled with PDT, but this bundle is no more there.
2. Run Eclipse and go to  Help -> Install new software in menu.
3. Put address http://download.eclipse.org/releases/indigo to Work with box.
4. Type PHP Development Tools to Type filter text box and check all offered plugins.
5. Click Next, confirm the license agreement and click Finish. You get probably modal dialog asking for restart Eclipse, so restart it.
6. Now our Eclipse is ready for PHP programming. If you don’t need FTP support, you can end up with this tutorial.
7. Again open Help -> Install new software.
8. Put address http://download.aptana.com/tools/studio/plugin/install/studio to Work with box and check Aptana Studio.
9. Click Next, confirm the license agreement and click Finish. You get probably modal dialog asking for restart Eclipse, so restart it.
10. Now when you click by right button of mouse on file in Project explorer (or PHP explorer etc.), you can see item File tranfer. With it you can easily upload, download, synchronize files between local files and ftp files.
11. After startup you get new window My Aptana. It is quite annoying, so go to Window -> Preferences in menu.
12. Select Aptana -> Startup page and check Never display after startup.

Speed-up of Eclipse

Eclipse is known as slow IDE, but we can customize it and Eclipse will be faster than before. So here is some tips:

• If you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, go to <workspace_directory>, click right button of mouse, select Properties -> Advanced and uncheck Allow files in this folder tho have contents indexed in addition to file properties.
• Exclude <workspace_directory> in antiviruses etc.
• Go to Window -> Preferences -> General -> Startup and Shutdown and uncheck all unnecessary plugins. I unchecked all Aptana plugins, because I need only FTP support.
• Go to Window -> Preferences -> General -> Workspace and uncheck Build automatically.
• Go to Window -> Preferences ->Validation and uncheck validators, you don’t need. I unchecked all.
• Go to <eclipse_instalation_folder> and open eclipse.ini and paste these lines at the end of file:
  --launcher.XXMaxPermSize
768m
-vm
C:/Program Files/Java/jdk1.6.0_24/jre/bin/server/jvm.dll
-vmargs
-Xms768m
-Xmx768m

  It means, you increase RAM used by Eclipse up to 768 MB (of course you can change this size by own). And -vm parameter is the absolute path to Java Virtual Machine.

I hope, my advice was useful and I’ll be glad, if you add some another.