Bug 492047 - better support for external folders
Summary: better support for external folders
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: Platform
Classification: Eclipse Project
Component: IDE (show other bugs)
Version: 4.5   Edit
Hardware: All All
: P3 enhancement (vote)
Target Milestone: ---   Edit
Assignee: Platform-UI-Inbox CLA
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Reported: 2016-04-19 18:40 EDT by Dave Dyer CLA
Modified: 2016-04-19 18:40 EDT (History)
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Description Dave Dyer CLA 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.