7. Tooling
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## 7. Tooling

SpringSource provides a set of plug-ins for the Eclipse IDE that streamline the development lifecycle of OSGi bundles and PAR applications. The Virgo Tomcat Server Tools build on top of the Eclipse Web Tools Project (WTP).

The Virgo Tomcat Server Tools support the creation of new OSGi bundle and PAR projects within Eclipse, and the conversion of existing projects into OSGi bundle projects. Projects can then be deployed and debugged on a running VTS from within Eclipse.

## 7.1 Installation

Currently the Tools support Eclipse 3.5 and Eclipse 3.6 with the corresponding version of WTP. Downloading and unzipping the Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers is the easiest way to start.

You may like to change the Eclipse launcher options to increase the values of `-XX:MaxPermSize`, `-Xms`, and `-Xmx`. Suggested values, if you have plenty of RAM, are `768m`, `500m`, and `2500m`, respectively.

Install the dm Server Tools, which include the Virgo Tools, from one of the following update sites depending on your version of Eclipse. Releases are, in general, more stable than milestones whereas nightly builds are not for the faint of heart.

- `http://dist.springsource.com/release/TOOLS/update/e3.6/`

- `http://dist.springsource.com/release/TOOLS/update/e3.5/`

- `http://dist.springsource.com/milestone/TOOLS/update/e3.6/`

- `http://dist.springsource.com/milestone/TOOLS/update/e3.5/`

- `http://dist.springsource.com/snapshot/TOOLS/nightly/e3.6/`

- `http://dist.springsource.com/snapshot/TOOLS/nightly/e3.5/`

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6.7 Form Tags as a plan | Home | 7.2 Running a Virgo Tomcat Server instance within Eclipse