Start the Eclipse workbench. Select Help, then Software Updates,
then Add...
On the location page enter the URL of your server (eg. http://my.server/
... fill in your actual server URL here). The URL needs to reflect
any additional server path elements leading to the install directory
you copied. For example, if you copied the install directory into
htdocs/examples (so the path is htdocs/examples/install), you would enter
the URL as http://my.server/examples.
Press Add and Next>. You should be presented with a list
containing installable components. The provided example contains a single
component called Update Example. Select it and complete the installation.You'll
need to restart the workbench to activate the changes.
Once restarted, you can see the new example function by adding it to
your perspectives. Select Perspective, Customize... and then
expand Other. Select Sample Action Set (this is an action
set implemented by this example plug-in that you just downloaded and installed).
A new menu labeled
Sample Menu should appear in the workbench with
a new action. Clicking the menu action displays an information box (to
verify the installation actually worked).
The install directory that you copied to the HTTP server is the output of building a component jar using the PDE Component Project setup (with one extra "server-side" file added). It contains the following:
install/
components/
install.index
org.eclipse.update.examples.component_1.0.0/
install.xml
install.properties
install_en.properties
orq.eclipse.update.examples.component_1.0.0.jar
The above directory structure is required to exist on the server. There is a common install root. There is also a common components subdirectory. It contains a subdirectory for each component available for download (in the example case just one, org.eclipse.update.examples.component_1.0.0). The file install.index was manually created (not generated by PDE). It is a simple directory index of component directories (one line per directory). This allows the update client to discover which component directories actually exist on the server.
The actual component as created by PDE is contained in the orq.eclipse.update.examples.component_1.0.0.jar. Its install.xml file that describes the component is also exposed to allow the update support to find out about the component without the need to actually download the jar. The install[_locale].properties files contain separated strings.
Please refer to PDE documentation for additional details of creating
component jars. Select Help, then Help Contents and PDE
ISV Guide (from the drop box). Please refer to the Eclipse platform
documentation for additional details of the installation conventions. Select
Help,
then Help Contents and Platform Plug-In Developer Guide (from
the drop box). The installation information is contained in section Reference,
Other
Reference Articles, Platform Installation and Update.