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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 plugin for Eclipse 3.4, 3.5, or 3.6 Visit the Force.com IDE main page for more information.

Force.com IDE for Spring '12

The Spring '12 release of the Force.com IDE adds updates for the latest Force.com platform features, and is available as a downloadable installer or through an Eclipse update site.

What's New

The Spring '12 release of the Force.com IDE contains the following major new features:

New Metadata Support in Spring '12
- For a complete list of metadata enhancements, see the Spring '12 Release Notes.
Documentation and User Assistance
- All documentation has been updated with Spring '12 content.
- Additional developer guides have been added to the documentation set, including the REST API, the Streaming API, and the Chatter REST API Developer's Guides.

Supported Platforms

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

Salesforce

Developer Edition
Free Force.com Edition
Enterprise Edition
Unlimited Edition

Eclipse Platform

Version 3.6 "Helios"
Version 3.5 "Galileo"
- Mac OS X users should download the "Mac OS X (Carbon)" build of Eclipse 3.5. The Cocoa-based implementation of Eclipse 3.5 has stability issues and is not supported by the Force.com IDE.
Version 3.4 "Ganymede"

Operating Systems

Windows XP and 7
Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), 10.5 (Leopard), and 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
Ubuntu 9.01 LTS Desktop Edition 32-bit and 64-bit

Installation

Follow these installation instructions to get the Force.com IDE for Spring '12:

Major and Minor Releases

The following Spring '12 releases are available on the Force.com IDE update site:

Spring '12 Generally Available (24.0) - March 1, 2012

Notes and Known Issues

Upgrading to Spring '12

After upgrading to the Spring '12 plug-in, projects created in a Winter '09 or later IDE can be upgraded to Spring '12 using the Project Upgrade wizard.

Note: Force.com IDE releases prior to Winter '09 were non-upgradeable "Developer Preview" releases. To migrate to the latest Force.com IDE, delete all Force.com projects from your workspace and uninstall the older IDE plug-in from Eclipse, then install the latest release.

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. You can still view the metadata deployment results from a browser by navigating to Setup | Deploy | Monitor Deployments.
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).