Bug 492047

Summary:	better support for external folders
Product:	[Eclipse Project] Platform	Reporter:	Dave Dyer <ddyer>
Component:	IDE	Assignee:	Platform-UI-Inbox <Platform-UI-Inbox>
Status:	NEW ---	QA Contact:
Severity:	enhancement
Priority:	P3
Version:	4.5
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	All
Whiteboard:

Description Dave Dyer

2016-04-19 18:40:15 EDT

I'm finding it useful to construct eclipse projects with the real sources in
an external folder, so the eclipse IDE gubbish is cleanly separated from the
actual sources for the project.

Eclipse could support this better in two ways.  

First the "new source folder" option could implemented it directly.  I currently have to first create a new folder with the special "external link" property, then pick that folder in the new source folder menu.

Second, the internal bookkeeping links to the external folder could have
the option of being expressed relative to the project, instead of as absolute
paths.  This option actually works now, if I manually edit the .project and .classpath files, but the edited paths get mangled back to absolute paths
in the normal course of business.   The use of relative paths would make
projects a lot easier to package for export.