Groovy plugin installation fails in STS 2.5.2 and 2.7

Question

I have tried installing Groovy plugin via STS's dashboard install feature in both 2.7 (the version I downloaded initially which was the latest version at the time). My colleague recommended downloading 2.5.2, the version he is using, so I did; however the Groovy plugin installer still fails. It starts with:

Cannot complete the install because of a conflicting dependency.
Software being installed: Groovy-Eclipse Feature 2.5.2.xx-20110808-1400-e36 (org.codehaus.groovy.eclipse.feature.feature.group 2.5.2.xx-20110808-1400-e36)

Windows 7 64B groovy v 1.8.2 grails v 1.3.7 jvm 1.6.0_26

Greatly appreciate any hints/recommendations/ideas. THANK YOU!

Answer 1

Make sure that your STS install is in a directory where the current user has write permissions. Also, there is a problem with installing into the Program Files directory (it is not really writable, even if you think it is).

The reason for this problem is the feature patch that comes with Groovy-Eclipse must be installed into the same directory as the rest of STS (an Eclipse limitation). This patch is the thing that patches the jdt compiler so that it can also compile groovy code.