GWT Designer not working with Eclipse 4.2 service release 2?

Question

I'm trying to do this tutorial after having installed Eclipse Juno 4.2 service release 2 (Java EE distribution) und following exactly the GWT installation instructions over here.

However, I neither get the WindowBuilder entry under Preferences, nor is there a WindowBuilder entry in the new projects dialog appearing. What am I doing wrong?

I'm running Ubuntu 12.04.02 LTS on amd64, and I have tried oracle jdk 7u17 and Ubuntu's own jdk6 distribution, but to no avail...

Just tried the same in Win2k3. Exact same result. Google is starting to annoy me. GWT 2.5.1 throws an error when trying one of my simplest projects...

Update: it is working to some extent. Meaning: WindowBuilder does not recognize GWT Designer's installation and offers to install GWT Designer for Eclipse 3.7. The designer toolbar's GWT selection possibilities therefore are not there.

Update: bug filed.

Update: bug was closed as won't fix. They don't care.

Answer 1

They do care. GWT is a magical development environment, under constant evolution. They have to race with new versions of browsers, Javascript and releases of Eclipse, so sometimes tiny things may not be always documented up to date. The tutorial you are trying to run is made for GWT Designer 2.3, GPE 2.3, Eclipse 3.7 & Java 1.6.

This tutorial works also perfectly well for Juno 4.2 SR2 with a few minor changes:

In step 1, just Create a Web Application Project. You can generate project sample code, make sure that things work and then clean it up and stick with the folder layout.

In step 3, just add a class and make it extend com.google.gwt.user.client.ui.Composite. Add an empty Constructor and then you can open the GWT Designer as always, in order to do the rest. The CSS styleName property has been improved. There are tool-tips to guide you.

PS: My tests were made in Ubuntu12.04-32bit, WinXP-32bit and Win7-64bit with JDK1.7.0_17-32bit and Eclipse-32bit.

Answer 2

In case the designer tab does't show up by default, I noticed that I can get it by right-clicking the .java on the package explorer and selecting 'open with ...' 'WindowBuilder Editor'.