I creat an eclipse plugin that I finished. I would like to "share" my plugin with some people without just send them the whole code and they have to "create" the plugin by copy paste the code. How can I make an installation file/ other way to make this plugin installable for others. Thanks
One option is to create a Feature project. (An Eclipse Feature is essentially a feature.xml file and build.properties file that specify a collection of one or more Eclipse plugins that will be included when the Feature is installed into an Eclipse application).
Feature projects allow you to choose which plugins to include in them when you create them using the New Feature Project Wizard.
Once your project is created, you will have the feature.xml file opened for you in its editor. There you will be able to fill in more meta data if desired, and you will be given links for Exporting and Publishing the feature for others to consume.
Follow the steps under "Exporting" in the Overview tab of the feature.xml editor and choose to deploy using the Export Wizard. I suggest that you choose to deploy to an Archive file.
Then you can send that resulting Archive file (zip file) to your people. Then have those people open their Eclipse instance and go to "Help -> Install New Software". Then choose "Add" to add an update site. Then choose "Archive" which will allow them to navigate to the zip file that you have sent them.
Once they select that, they will be on their way to installing your Feature which contains your plugin into their Eclispe installation.