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Eclipse stores it's configuration in multiple files: .settings/... .classpath .project I like to keep the settings in CVS/SVN/whatever. Yet, the names of these files are rather general and very eclipse-unspecific. In addition, there are at least 3 entries in the root-directory of a project, that belong to Eclipse. For future versions (3.5, maybe 4.0) i'd like to see a cleaner mechanism: - store ALL configuration in ONE subfolder - no more .project/.classpath files or .settings folder with very general names - use an eclipse-specific name like ".eclipse" or maybe the domainname-derived ".org.eclipse" for the configuration folder I'm pretty sure, it's much work and any plugin developers will kill you :-) So maybe it's an enhancement that should be targeted for a new major version.
Sven, this looks to be a good idea to me. I'll put it into the 4.0 bucket for now since this would be unlikely to change in the 3.x stream any time soon.
Addition thought: Maybe it's also best practice, to use correct file extensions. So for example instead of just saving a file ".classpath" with XML content, it would be nice if Eclipse would store it in a file with ".xml" extenstion. All together, with my thoughts from above, the file could be called .eclipse/org.eclipse.jdt.classpath.xml
Removing outdated target milestone.
Unfortunately, Eclipse 4.x has emerged without this change included. After 4 years, I still think that Eclipse should: - store all (or all expect one) configuration files in a project subfolder: This will (hopefully) in a more clean structure and it can (hopefully) unify the (at least) two different approaches of storing preferences (e.g. JDT puts some confiuration in the .classpath file - other configuration is stored in .settings/*.xml) - use proper file extentions for its configuration files: No more .project or .classpath filenames please. This will help CVS, SVN, git - especially external clients and people not using eclipse - to treat the files correctly. Kind Regards, Sven
This bug hasn't had any activity in quite some time. Maybe the problem got resolved, was a duplicate of something else, or became less pressing for some reason - or maybe it's still relevant but just hasn't been looked at yet. If you have further information on the current state of the bug, please add it. The information can be, for example, that the problem still occurs, that you still want the feature, that more information is needed, or that the bug is (for whatever reason) no longer relevant. If the bug is still relevant, please remove the stalebug whiteboard tag.
This is still on my wishlist. Every .gitattributes and/or .gitignore file is clobbered with eclipse specific files. The files don't have proper extensions (e.g., .project should at least be called .project.xml) and project configuration is in the root directory of the project when it could reside in a nice subfolder (such as .eclipse). Sure, this structure has grown as it did for historic reasons, but this is getting out of hand. Most 3rd party plugins also follow the naming convention and place a ".somename" file in the root of the project. Then again, there is the .settings folder. Even though I wish that folder would have been called ".eclipse", that folder is a step in the right direction: config files inside have proper extensions. But files like .project have not been moved inside that folder, yet.
