Could anyone explain the exact difference among project explorer, package explorer and navigator in eclipse?

Question

What are the exact differences between project explorer, package explorer and navigator in eclipse?

I am so confused of using the three. Because all seem to fit the same purpose. I don't know, what the exact difference is. Could anyone explain this to me and suggest which one is better for checking out?

Answer 1

From the Eclipse Documentation about the Common Navigator Framework:

There are currently 3 major navigators in the Eclipse IDE.

1. Project Explorer - This is an instance of the CommonNavigator that is provided by the org.eclipse.ui.navigator.resources plugin. It provides a view of the workspace and has a large number of NCEs contributed for resources, Java, C, Web Tools, Data Tools, PHP, etc.

2. Package Explorer - Provided by the Java Development Tools (JDT) UI project, this provides a view of Java classes for the workspace. Generally speaking, the presentation of the Package Explorer and Project Explorer for Java objects is substantially similar. The JDT is not used for projects beyond Java.

3. Navigator - This view is an implementation of the now deprecated (as of 3.5) org.eclipse.ui.views.navigator.ResourceNavigator class provided in the org.eclipse.ui.ide plugin. It shows only the workspace resources and does not support extensibility to show other content. In a future release, the Navigator view will be provided by an implementation of the CommonNavigator.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Also see What is the difference between the Eclipse Package Explorer and the Eclipse Project Explorer? for specific differences between Project Explorer and Package Explorer.