Title: Eclipse link files
Date: 2009-03-03
Lang: en

Starting with Eclipse Ganymede you have a *dropins* folder into which you can drop custom plugins that don't come via an update site.

Some plugins come with a feature, however so you're forced to mainain a directory structure below the dropins folder. Add working across different Eclipse installations (probably on different hosts) to the mix and you'll have a bit of boring, repetitive work mainaining the the dropins folder.

Enter link files (mentioned [briefly here](http://wiki.eclipse.org/Equinox_p2_Getting_Started#Dropins)). I have put all of the additional plugins in a custom mercurial repository that I sync on all machines that I use. The only modifications I still have to make to the local Eclipse installation is setting up the .link file - very handy.