Application Development: LABS GALLERY: Eclipse Plug-in Taps into Force.com

LABS GALLERY: Eclipse Plug-in Taps into Force.com

by Jeff Cogswell

Installation

Installing the Eclipse plug-in for Force.com is a simple matter of using the built-in Eclipse software update.

Link to Force.com

Once installed, the plug-in includes a page that links you to the Force.com developer site.

Credentials

Creating a new Force.com project requires that you provide your credentials, which can be obtained from the Force.com site. (A starter level is available for free.)

Metadata Components

Metadata components play a fundamental part in the Force.com applications and infrastructure. When you create a new project, you can specify which components your application needs.

Apex Support

The plug-in enhances the editor to support Force.com's Apex programming language.

On-the-Fly Code Testing

The plug-in also includes an interesting capability that lets you test out blocks of code on the fly right on the Force.com servers.

Database Exploration

You can explore the databases and schemas right from within Eclipse, and execute queries against the databases.