Saturday, March 24, 2007

Who is to blame?

Ever wondered why Eclipse takes so long to start? Now you can find out, with a small plug-in that makes use of the new pluggable splash API. Just drop the "blame splash" plug-in into your plugins directory of a recent Eclipse build, restart Eclipse (use the -clean command line option once so that the new plug-in is recognized), and watch which plug-ins are loaded and why:



After Eclipse has started, the functionality is moved into its own proper window until you close it:



I tested this on Windows XP but it should work on other platforms too. You will need a 1.5 level Java VM to run this.

(Update, April 10, 2007: Essentially the same functionality, plus lots more, is offered by the core tools. The information just doesn't appear in the splash screen :) )

Please file specific bugs if you think that too many plug-ins are activated!