Eclipse Feature Deployment into other Applications

Question

I've generated an eclipse rcp plug-in project based on the vogella.com tutorial: http://www.vogella.com/tutorials/EclipseRCP/article.html#e4_plugin. I've then created a "Feature Project" that provides the created plug-in as part of it's delivery. The feature is then exported to an archive file and installed into eclipse (restarted after install).

I've created a new workspace, with a new "Eclipse 4 Application". I've changed the "Product configuration is based on: " to use features. And then try to add the feature that was exported into this new project, and cannot find it in the list of features available. I can find the plug-in that's in the feature (I'm able to create a new plug-in, and add the plug-in that's in the feature as a dependency). I've also gone to the installation details window (from help->about) to determine if the feature is listed there. My feature is listed under "Installed software", and the plugin is listed under "Plug-ins", but the feature is not listed under the "Features" tab.

What am I missing in the configuration of the feature that will allow me to export this feature to other developers without them having to build a new feature based on the plug-ins?

Answer 1

This ended up being a permission issue. The eclipse installation was owned by 'Administrator', so the plugins for the feature were being installed into the workspace/.metadata/.plugins directory. There appears to be no way to install features into this directory, and therefore they were not a part of the eclipse system.