Eclipse doesn't load plugins in the dropins folder

Question

I just downloaded Eclipse SDK 3.5.1 and want to install some add ons such as GEF, EMF, etc.

I downloaded all the zip files for everything I needed and decided to install them in the dropins folder. I read http://wiki.eclipse.org/Equinox_p2_Getting_Started and structured my dropin folder as specified:

eclipse/  
   dropins/  
     emf/  
       eclipse/  
         features/  
         plugins/  
     gef/  
       eclipse/  
         features/  
         plugins/  
     ... etc ...

When I start up Eclipse it does not recognize any of the features or plugins I have put into the structure above. Any ideas?

Answer 1

This is probably a bit late to help you, but maybe it will help somebody else. I had a similar problem, so I posted a question to the Eclipse Community Forums asking about how to get a report about missing dependencies. Mickael Istria's helpful reply is shown below for those who aren't members of that forum:

---

You can start or diag the OSGi Console and try to start the bundle manually. The console will print you some warnings. See http://eclipse.org/equinox/documents/quickstart.php and for more details.

shell> eclipse -console
 [...Eclipse starts up...] 
osgi> diag your.unresolved.bundle
 [...shows you unresolved constraints...]

---

In my case, I tried several directory structures that I thought should work, before I found one that did:

dropins/
   myPlugin
   plugins/
      depPluginDir1/*
      depPluginDir2/*

Coming back years later to solve a similar problem..., I found the following web pages to be helpful: Where is My Bundle, Plug-ins are not picked up from the dropins/ folder.