Eclipse is a free and open source IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for developing a variety of applications from console and GUI applications on the client-side to web applications on the server. It has specific editions for different programming languages. In case of JSP, it offers Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers for developing JSP based web applications.
The purpose of an IDE is to make the task of developing applications much easier. In the context of JSP web applications, Eclipse supports syntax coloring and highlighting, intellisense and code completion. It supports TDD (Test Driven Deployment). It has built-in support for debugging and allows one-click compilation and deployment of JSP applications.
In this tutorial, we will download and install 'Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers' that will allow us to develop, test and run JSP web applications with Apache Tomcat 7.0 as the Servlet container.
Step 1: Download Eclipse
Open your browser and visit Eclipse Downloads page. As shown in the figure below, click the download link for 'Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers' and choose 32 or 64 bit version depending on the Operating System on your computer:
Step 2: Unzip Eclipse
The file that you just finished downloading will have a name of something like eclipse-jee-helios-SR2-win32-x86_64.zip. Now, unzip this zip file into a new folder on your C:\ drive. You can choose any drive but I chose C:\ for the purpose of simplicity.
Next, create a new folder with the name of 'eclipse' in that drive and then unzip eclipse-jee-helios-SR2-win32-x86_64.zip in that folder.
After the unpacking is complete, this is what your C:\ should look like:
Step 3: Running Eclipse
Now go to the C:\eclipse folder and double-click eclipse.exe file as shown below:
Eclipse starts up! First it will ask you for the location of default workspace. When you select a location and proceed next, Eclipse's default welcome screen shows up as shown in the image below:
Congratulations! You have successfully downloaded and installed Eclipse IDE for JSP development on your computer. You are now ready to start developing JSP web applications.
