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The Force.com IDE provides a unified interface for building and deploying Force.com applications. Designed for developers and development teams, the IDE provides tools to accelerate Force.com application development, including source code editors, test execution tools, wizards, and integrated help. It is currently available as a plug-in for Eclipse 3.4 or 3.3.

Visit the Force.com IDE main page for more information.

Force.com IDE for Summer '09

The Summer '09 release of the Force.com IDE adds support for Eclipse 3.4, updates for the latest Force.com metadata types, and the ability to upgrade existing projects created in Spring '09 or Winter '09.

What's New

The Summer '09 release of the Force.com IDE contains the following major new features:

• Eclipse 3.4 Support
  • Use the Force.com IDE with Eclipse Platform 3.4 (Ganymede) and take advantage of the all the latest Eclipse features.
  • Installation of the Force.com IDE is a breeze with Eclipse P2 installer support, which finds and downloads required dependencies automatically.
• New Metadata Support in Spring '09
  • Analytic Snapshots
  • Enhancements to Schema Objects, Apex, Visualforce, and more.
• Summer '09 Upgrade Wizard
  • Seamlessly upgrade the contents of any Force.com project created in the Spring '09 (v15) or Winter '09 (v14) IDE.
  • Projects will not be upgraded until you are ready, but until you upgrade a project you will be unable to synchronize files with the server.
• Documentation and User Assistance
  • All documentation has been updated with Summer '09 content.

Supported platforms

The Force.com IDE supports the following Eclipse versions and operating systems:

• Eclipse Platform
  • Version 3.4.2 "Ganymede"
  • Version 3.3.x (3.3.1.1 or 3.3.2) "Europa"
• Operating systems
  • Windows XP
  • Windows Vista
  • Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
  • Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
  • Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition 32-bit and 64-bit

Installation

Follow these installation instructions based on your version of the Eclipse Platform:

• Force.com IDE Installation for Eclipse 3.4
• Force.com IDE Installation for Eclipse 3.3
• Updating the Force.com IDE from a previous version

Note: The Force.com IDE is not compatible with Eclipse 3.5 ("Galileo").

Major and Minor Releases

The following Summer '09 releases are available on the Force.com IDE update site:

• Summer '09 Generally Available (16.0.0) - June 15, 2009

Notes and Known Issues

Upgrading to Summer '09

• Beginning with the Winter '09 IDE, there is a simple upgrade path to later releases. After upgrading to the Summer '09 plug-in, projects created in a Winter '09 or later IDE can be upgraded to Summer '09 using the Project Upgrade wizard.

Working with Force.com Projects

• To create a Force.com project against a Salesforce organization, the user must have a profile with the Customize Application and Modify All Data and permissions (typically held only by System Administrators).
• When adding a Force.com Nature to projects not created with the New Force.com Project wizard, the IDE's src folder may cause conflicts with other project directory structures containing src. If you have name clash problems, rename the non-Force.com folders so they are unique, or remove the Force.com Nature from the project.
• After changing the Apex Code log level marker under Force.com project properties, the UI does not reflect the value change, even though the value is saved correctly and Apex Code executes with the correct logging level.

Working with Apex Code

• Code assistance does not support Apex annotations such as @isTest.
• Code assistance does not support Dynamic Apex.
• Code assistance does not support certain runtime properties, such as Visualforce page names as static properties of the Page class.
• Apex Code Editor syntax highlighting is case-sensitive even though the Apex language is case-insensitive.

Working with Metadata Files

• Some advanced IDE features, such as creation wizards and Show in Salesforce Web, are not available on all metadata components.
• Removing a <fields> tag from a custom object does not actually remove the custom field on save. Instead, use the Salesforce Web interface to delete the field.
• Deleting a custom object from the IDE does not remove any corresponding .layout or .workflow files, even though these components are deleted from the server. These files must be deleted separately.
• Deleting a metadata file while in Work Offline mode never deletes the file from the server, but deletes the file locally.
• To delete a project resource from the server, you must use the Package Explorer. Deleting files using the Navigator view or from the local file system does not delete the server-side component.
• Modifying components inside installed managed packages, under the Referenced Packages folder, is not supported.
• You cannot delete a folder that contains documents. As a workaround, use the Salesforce user interface to delete the documents. Then you can delete the folder in the IDE.

Server Synchronization

• If a file changes outside of the IDE, Eclipse doesn't automatically refresh the content. This can happen if you are using an external source-control client when a file is synchronized or reverted. To see the changes in the IDE, you must refresh the file using Eclipse's Refresh for file system changes and "Refresh from Server" or "Synchronize with Server."
• Saving a resource while the Synchronize View is open can falsely identify the resource as out of synchronization. Refreshing the Synchronize View removes the conflict.
• If a packaged object has a sharing reason, doing a Refresh from Server on that file alone does not update the file. If this is an unpackaged object, or if you refresh the entire project, then the file with the sharing reason is updated.

Deployment

• If the Deploy to Server wizard times out or is canceled while waiting for the server to complete a deployment, the server continues the deployment but you are not notified of the results.
• The Deploy to Server wizard cannot deploy to an organization containing two packages with the same name. In this case, the IDE shows the error "Duplicate packages are installed. Cannot make the deployment plan." If you have more than one package with the same name, you need to uninstall (or for local packages, rename) the duplicates.
• The Deploy to Server wizard only allows deployment of metadata components that are enabled in the destination environment. Disabled components are excluded from the deployment plan.
• A deployment archive (archive of destination environment) is not generated if the deployment plan only contains deletes.

Schema Explorer

• A syntax error in a malformed SOQL query is highlighted by the caret (^) symbol. However, the caret highlighted location is not accurate in the error dialog. Locate the syntax error by column and row number, instead of the caret.
• SOQL queries that return no results do so without an accompanying message. It may appear as if the query did not run, but in fact there are no returned rows.
• Malformed queries may return the error, "Unable to open Schema Explorer." If you receive this message make sure your query is correct.

Other

• Proxy servers using NTLM and digest authentication are not supported by Eclipse.
• If you are working with large (> 2.5MB) component content, Eclipse needs at least 512MB of memory. See the Force.com IDE FAQ.
• Features that interact with a browser (Show in Salesforce Web, Force.com IDE Start Page) require a default browser to be installed. If the standard wizard toolkit (SWT) crashes while opening an artifact (menu items, dialogs, etc.) and Mozilla Firefox is your default browser, ensure that you have installed the correct Mozilla Runtime Environment (MRE) for your Eclipse version (32-bit/64-bit).

Resources

Past Releases

For information on previous releases of the Force.com IDE, visit the Force.com IDE Past Releases page.