How to export eclipse workbench layout (or perspective settings)

Do you find yourself in the need of configuring your eclipse workbench layout on every new computer you are working on? I did. I am used to a personal workbench layout. Unfortunately eclipse (version 3.3) does not seem to provide means for exporting workbench layout or perspective settings and importing them on another machine (if you know a way I am not aware of, please let me know). Eclipse provides build-in means for exporting some user settings such as keys, formatter and cleanup but how do you export your workbench layout or perspective settings?

My answer to this question is a little bit hacky, but it works. Go to your eclipse workspace directory in your file system and find the folder workspace/.metadata/.plugins/. This folder contains all the configuration you have made in your workbench. You don't have to copy all contents of this folder to achieve the goal of exporting your perspective settings or workbench layout. In particular the following folders are interesting:

workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.ui.workbench/

This folder contains all your perspective settings and your workbench layout. Copy this folder and its contents and save them in the workspace of the other computer.

workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.runtime/.settings/

This folder contains all the settings you have made in the eclipse preferences. Eclipse provides build-in means for exporting some of them, but copying this folder works also.

There may also be other folders in the .plugins directory you are interested in. They all contain preferences and settings for some build-in or installed eclipse plugins.

Google's Android is here

If you are into mobile device development and havn't heard about Android yet, you should go check it out now. In short, Android is Google's (and partners) new platform for mobile devices. It consists of a linux operating system and an SDK that sits on top of the Java programming language and a custom Java VM named DALVIK, which is specifically designed for embedded and mobile devices. I am currently soaking up the Android documentation and API and I am eager to build my first Android application.

This is a very exciting moment for all Java and Google enthusiasts and a milestone in the history of mobile devices. Unfortunately the first Android devices will not come before late 2008, and even later in Europe, but this is not reducing my excitement.

Welcome to Coşkun's Castle

The beginning is now

Although I have always wished to be one, I have never been the blogging type of guy. I am a little perfectionist and my thoughts about blogging always have been "If you start blogging, start at the beginning". This always kept me from blogging, as a third of my life (very optimistic estimation) has passed and there seems to be much to catch up.

So why am I starting now? I must have been creating a Blogger account by mistake. I noticed that I have a Blogger account, when I was commenting on a blog by Neal Gafter: my comment was automatically signed with my Blogger profile. Hence people could follow my comment to my Blogger profile but there was no associated blog to read yet. I decided that this is not acceptable. Though I wont start blogging about my past life now. The beginning of my blogging life is now.


Who I am and what I will blog about

I believe that inspecting someone's online behavior is a good way to learn something about that person. Instead of introducing myself now, I direct everyone who is interested to search for my internet appearances. My Picasa Web Albums are a very good start. Also YouTube favorites and playlists tell much about a person. You can see excerpts of what my feed reader is currently giving me for reading on this blog's side bar. I am currently not an active user of other social communities in the web. I will update this blog, if this changes in future.

Another question is what I will blog about. I really don't know, time will tell. I don't expect to blog very often, once a week at most. I would not be surprised if there is no blog entry for months.


Why Coşkun's Castle?

A final note on the title of my blog. Why is it Coşkun's Castle? The first domain I ever registered was coskuns-castle.de. It was a long time ago and there was no special reason for the name. The domain did not contain any homepage, its primary purpose was the email mailbox associated with it and the web space provided by my host provider. Because I use that email address very excessively, I figured it is a good idea to have something on the homepage for all the curious people who visit the page after seeing my email address. Hence I redirected the page to blogspot and gave my blog a matching name.