Time for action – categorizing the update site

The Group items by category mechanism allows a small subset of features to be shown in the list, grouped by category. Eclipse is a highly modular application, and a regular install is likely to include over 400 features and over 600 plug-ins. A one-dimensional list of all of the features will take up a significant amount of UI space and not provide the best user experience; and in any case, many of the features are subsets of the core functionality (Mylyn alone can install over 150 features, depending on what combinations are selected in the install).

This categorization works by providing a category.xml file (also known as site.xml), which defines a category and a collection of features within that category. When the Group items by category checkbox is selected, only the groups and features defined in the category.xml file are shown, and the rest of the features and plug-ins are hidden. These are usually done via a separate Update Site Project...