Eugen Cojocaru

Eclipse RCP: Installing and Updating with p2 (Part I)

With Eclipse RCP you can build complex platform independent applications using a powerful framework. As it is very important to keep your applications updated, one of the most interesting feature of Eclipse RCP is Equinox p2. Provisioning is the act of finding and installing new functionality, and updating or removing existing functionality. Equinox p2 is a provisioning platform for Eclipse-based applications and debuted in Eclipse v3.4 as a replacement for the old Update Manager.

Although the update system represents a very important aspect for a professional software product, the issues encountered during implementation by a lot of developers shows that it is not quite strait forward to build one and integrate it.