AspectBrowser for Eclipse Table of Contents 1. About AspectBrowser for Eclipse 2. Installing and Starting AspectBrowser 3. Features of AspectBrowser 4. Frequently Asked Questions

1. Download aspectbrowsereclipse-1.0.zip by right-clicking on this link and selecting "Save As...". If you wish to verify your download with an MD5 sum, use aspectbrowsereclipse-1.0.zip.md5 (not required).
2. (Optional) Download the StarDiagram and AspectBrowser for Eclipse source code.
3. Close your copy of Eclipse, if it is open.
4. Open up the .zip file and copy the uncompressed contents of the "plugins" folder (it's a folder named edu.ucsd.aspectbrowser_1.0.0) to your Eclipse "plugins" folder (this folder is in the top-level of your Eclipse installation).
5. Restart your Eclipse.

After the plugin has been installed, you can start AspectBrowser in Eclipse by selecting Window→Open Perspective→Other... to bring up the Select Perspective dialog. In the Select Perspective dialog click on "Aspect Browser" and then click on "OK".

Aspect Tree View

Create Aspect Enter a regular expression into the "Grep Pattern" text field and click on the "Create Aspect" button (or hit return) to create an aspect. An aspect is shown when it's check box in the aspect tree is in the checked state.   Create Group To create a new group, enter in the group name in the "Grep Pattern" text field and click on the "Create Group" button. A new folder will be created at the same level as the currently selected item in the aspect tree. Enable/Disable Highlighting When this toggle button is pushed down, aspects will appear in not only the file visualization, but also in open text editors as "highlights". This feature can allow you to quickly find search results in the text editor. When the toggle button is up, highlighting is disabled. Even when highlighting is disabled, aspects will still be represented in the file visualization. Remove Aspect (or Group) from Tree Removes the selected aspect or group from the aspect tree.

Visualization and Navigation View

Move to Next Aspect Move the text cursor to the next aspect found, possibly opening a new text editor on a resource to visit it. Move to Previous Aspect Move the text cursor back to the previous aspect found. Move to Most Recent Navigated Location Double-clicking on areas of files in the file visualization will move the cursor to that part of the file. This spot is marked with a red circle. If you've scrolling down after moving to that location Fold Empty Files Fold blank files into narrow width strips if they don't contain any aspects. Increase File Visualization Zoom Increase the size of the file representation (by default, one line of pixels equals one line of text) Decrease File Visualization Zoom Decrease the size of the file representation. Increase Width of Files Make the file representations wider. Decrease Width of Files Make the file representations narrower.

When I reopen Eclipse, the text highlighting disappears. Where did it go?

Text highlighting is disabled when Eclipse is reopened. To re-enable it, click on the Enable/Disable Highlighting toggle in the Aspect Tree view.

What License is the code under?

The code for the Eclipse plug-in is released under the Common Public License. Please copy the plug-in code and distribute modifications as much as you wish, but you must retain the same license.

The plug-in makes use of an external JAR file named Nebulous.jar for some of the processing. If you are interested in using the source code of Nebulous.jar for non-commercial purposes or wish to license it, please contact us.

How can I ask more questions?

Email the team! Please include your platform and how you used the tool. Also, feedback is much appreciated!