Aptana Studio Beginner's Guide

In order to download the current version of Aptana Studio, navigate to the Aptana home page at http://www.aptana.com/products/studio3/download.

Simply select your system environment on the website and download the Aptana Studio package to your ~/Downloads folder. You can also do this quickly by using wget on the command line (just replace *version* by your used version), as follows:

wget http://download.aptana.com/studio3/standalone/*version*/linux/Aptana_Studio_3_Setup_Linux_x86_64_*version*.zip -P ~/Downloads

After downloading the Aptana Studio package, we only need to extract it. For this, we use the unzip command, which also redirects the extracted files to the /opt folder.

sudo unzip ./Aptana_Studio_3_Setup_Linux_x86_64_*version*.zip -d /opt/

We just have to create a symbolic link so that we can start Aptana Studio without typing the complete path on the command line.

sudo ln -s /opt/Aptana\ Studio\ 3/AptanaStudio3 /usr/bin/AptanaStudio3

Finally, you have to change the owner and/or group of your installation files; this will allow Aptana Studio to modify its files and carry out updates.

sudo chown thomas:thomas ./Aptana\ Studio\ 3 -R

Now, you can start Aptana Studio just by executing the following instruction on the command line:

AptanaStudio3

In order to download the current version of Aptana Studio, navigate to the Aptana homepage at http://www.aptana.com/products/studio3/download.

Simply select your system environment on the website and download the Aptana Studio package to your workstation.

Double-click the downloaded .exe file in order to start the installation process.

Now, you have to follow the installation instructions; click on Next.

Click on the I Agree button to accept the terms of agreement.

Select a folder for Aptana Studio to be installed in.

Now, select a Start menu folder.

Last but not least, select the file extensions to be associated with Aptana Studio.

Now, click on the Install button in order to start the installation.

After the installation process is over, just click on the Close button to finish the installation.

In order to download the current version of Aptana Studio, navigate to the Aptana homepage at http://www.aptana.com/products/studio3/download.

Simply select your system environment on the website and download the Aptana Studio package to your workstation.

Double-click the downloaded .dmg file in order to extract the installation files.

After that, you just have to drag Aptana Studio into your Applications folder.

And that's it!

In order to increase the memory, you have to edit the AptanaStudio3.ini file, which is contained in the installation folder. You can do this simply by using a plain-text editor and adjusting the memory parameter.

nano /opt/Aptana\ Studio\ 3/AptanaStudio3.ini

In our case, because we use a Linux system, the .ini file looks like this:

--launcher.XXMaxPermSize

256m

--launcher.defaultAction

openFile

-vmargs

-Xms40m

-Xmx512m

-Declipse.p2.unsignedPolicy=allow

-Declipse.log.size.max=10000

-Declipse.log.backup.max=5

-Djava.awt.headless=true

Here you are able to adjust the Xms and Xmx values and change them to the number of megabytes you require.

Finally, Aptana Studio needs to restart for the changes to take effect.

Before we can start the installation of the Subversion plugin, we have to check for Aptana Studio updates and install them. It's highly recommended that this be done before every plugin installation.

If your system is up-to-date, open the Available Software window that you will find under Help | Install New Software....

Here you have to add the URL from the update site from where the plugin should be installed.

But, from where can you get the required update site URL for your plugin?

Most plugin developers usually provide this update site URL on their website. Sometimes, they also provide an additional package for a manual installation. But it's recommended that you install the plugin with the update manager, because the manager checks the required dependencies and prevents installation if the dependencies are not

So, just surf quickly to the Tigris Subclipse website, http://subclipse.tigris.org, and determine the URL of the required update site, which is currently available at http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.6.x.

Now, we go back to Aptana Studio and click on the Add... button in order to add the new location for our plugin.

For the Name, just enter a label such as Subclipse 1.6.x. But don't forget to add the version number of the plugin. It's possible for you to have to add more and more update sites over time for the same plugin. And if there is a new major version of the Subclipse plugin, there will also be a new update site location that you'll have to add. So, prevent confusion between similar plugins, and always specify a name that identifies your update site clearly. You could even use the URL directly as the label.

Finally, you have to add the URL in the Location field and click on OK.

Now you have to wait for a short moment until the table is refreshed. After that, you should see an entry named Subclipse, which you can expand. Expand the Subclipse node and select the packages that we need for our purposes. In the following screenshot, you will see the packages that we need to select for our Subclipse plugin:

Click on the Next button, and Aptana Studio will check whether all dependencies are satisfied, which should be the case.

As you can see in the preceding screenshot, all dependencies are satisfied. So, we can click on Next for the second time, and before the installation starts, you only need to confirm the terms and conditions.

The moment you click Finish, Aptana Studio connects to the update site, downloads the required packages, and installs them.

The moment Aptana Studio finishes installing the plugin, a dialog appears and recommends that you restart Aptana Studio. We recommend this too; therefore, you should click on Restart Now.

After Aptana Studio starts up again, the plugin asks you if you want to send the Subclipse team anonymous usage statistics.

I think it's generally ok to support the developers with anonymous data because they also make it possible for us to use a lot of great plugins and software for free. In addition, we help them with our statistics to optimize the plugin and help to integrate users' new requirements.

Therefore, we click on OK.

If you want to change your decision later, you can do this under Window | Preferences. There, you'll have to navigate to Team | SVN | Usage Reporting.