I originally developed this plug-in to help me with web application development. Having used Forte and JDeveloper in the past and feeling them lacking, the former being quite slow (in my honest opinion) and the latter restricted by it's price. However, both are limited by their respective CVS interfaces which I found extremely un-intuitive to use. There were certain features that I liked about both IDEs', the web application development features, which are reasonably good in both products.

Then I discovered Eclipse and realised just how good a Java IDE can actually be. Admittedly there are some limitations but certainly not the price or speed and the CVS interface is exactly what it should be. Unfortunately my favourite web application development features were missing, hence the reason for this plug-in. I developed the WebApp Plug-in over the last 3 months, the prototype taking just 3 or 4 weeks to develop.After a number of less than positive reactions to my original prototype, I decided to extend the functionality from the original internal Tomcat server, to a framework for integrating any type of web application server. To date I have created adapters for Jetty, Tomcat and Resin. Unfortunately I am not allowed to post the Resin adapter for licensing reasons. To give you an idea of how quick it is to integrate a server with the framework, each adapter took less than a day to develop. 

I know there are a number of similar plug-ins available for Eclipse and this is not intended to be better than these but just another alternative. I hope you find this plug-in useful and I would be interested in receiving any constructive feedback.

Regards,

Joss Wright

January 2003