Why does the rcp-Plugin-product does not start in the excepted way and why does after launching the property 'preferenceCustomization' disappear?

Question

I created a product of my RCP-Plugin-project. In my RCP-Plugin-project I have implemented an own perspective for my plugin to start with. Running my plugin as application, everything works fine and I can see my perspective.

To set my perspective as default I have added a 'property' preferenceCustomization to the plugin.xml of my product. The code of related plugin_customization.ini is the following:

org.eclipse.ui/SHOW_PROGRESS_ON_STARTUP = false
org.eclipse.ui/defaultPerspectiveId=de.cau.cs.bdd.perspective

The plugin.xml of the application:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?eclipse version="3.4"?>
<plugin>
   <extension
         point="org.eclipse.ui.perspectives">
      <perspective
        class="bdd.klighd.Perspective"
        fixed="true"
        id="de.cau.cs.bdd.perspective"
        name="BDD Perspective">
      </perspective>
   </extension>
   <extension
         point="de.cau.cs.kieler.klighd.diagramSyntheses">
       <diagramSynthesis
         class="de.cau.cs.kieler.klighd.syntheses.GuiceBasedSynthesisFactory:bdd.klighd.BDDDiagramSynthesis"
         id="bdd.klighd.BDDDiagramSynthesis">
       </diagramSynthesis>
   </extension>
   <extension
     point="de.cau.cs.kieler.klighd.ui.view.controller">
      <controller
        class="bdd.klighd.BDDEditorViewController">
      </controller>
   </extension>
   <extension
         point="org.eclipse.ui.editors">
      <editor
        class="bdd.klighd.BDDEditor"
        default="true"
        id="bdd.klighd.BDDEditor"
        name="BDDEditor">
      </editor>
   </extension>
   <extension
     point="org.eclipse.ui.commands">
      <command
        defaultHandler="bdd.klighd.CallBDDEditor"
        id="bdd.klighd.openBDDEditor"
        name="Open BDDEditor">
      </command>
   </extension>
   <extension
     point="de.cau.cs.kieler.klighd.ui.view.editor">
      <editor
        controllerID="bddcontroller"
        editorID="bdd.klighd.BDDEditor">
      </editor>
   </extension>
   <extension
     point="org.eclipse.ui.elementFactories">
      <factory
        class="bdd.klighd.ElementFactory"
        id="bdd.klighd.factory">
      </factory>
   </extension>
   <extension
    point="org.eclipse.ui.perspectiveExtensions">
    <perspectiveExtension
 targetID="de.cau.cs.bdd.perspective">
     <hiddenMenuItem id="org.eclipse.ui.run"></hiddenMenuItem>
     <hiddenMenuItem id="navigate"></hiddenMenuItem>
     <hiddenMenuItem id="file"></hiddenMenuItem>
     <hiddenMenuItem id="project"></hiddenMenuItem>
     <hiddenMenuItem id="window"></hiddenMenuItem>
     <hiddenMenuItem id="help"></hiddenMenuItem>
     <hiddenMenuItem id="edit"></hiddenMenuItem>
      <hiddenMenuItem id=" org.eclipse.search.menu"></hiddenMenuItem>
         </perspectiveExtension>
 </extension>
</plugin>

The plugin.xml of the product:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?eclipse version="3.4"?>
    <plugin>
   <extension
     id="product"
     point="org.eclipse.core.runtime.products">
      <product
        application="org.eclipse.ui.ide.workbench"
        name="BDDProduct">
         <property
           name="appName"
           value="BDDProduct">
         </property>
         <property
           name="rendererFactoryUri"
           value="bundleclass://swt.renderer/swt.renderer.RendererFactory">
         </property>
         <property
           name="preferenceCustomization"
           value="plugin_customization.ini">
         </property>
      </product>
   </extension>
 </plugin>

Oddly enough launching my product I obtain an empty eclipse-window and the property preferenceCustomization has disappeared.

Does anybody know why this could happen? And how to fix it?

Answer 1

To preserve the preferenceCustomization property when you synchronize the product add this to the end of the .product file:

   <preferencesInfo>
      <targetfile overwrite="false" path="/my-project/plugin_customization.ini"/>
   </preferencesInfo>

   <cssInfo>
   </cssInfo>

I discovered this when I was researching the purpose of the Customization tab in the product view.

(tested on Eclipse Neon.2 - 4.6.2)