Eclipse - how to distribute eclipse metadata to team members

Question

We're using eclipse and we have a main project with many different sub-projects/fascades/settings, etc. Is there a way to save all these settings so that team members can just check out the code (say, into a new laptop) and somehow apply all the eclipse metadata so that each project has the proper fascadesm, settings, etc? Right now, they are checking in all the eclipse meta data into svn. YUCK!!! btw: eclipse v3.4.2

Answer 1

Try this (step 5 is optional):

1. zip up the project tree (jar files are zip files, so jar works as well).
2. remove all non-meta-data files from the zip file.
3. get the project from source control.
4. unzip the meta-data zip file over top of the newly checked out project.
5. frown because the meta-data is probabaly out of sync with recent project changes since it is not stored with the source in source control.

The above assumes that metadata in your question is the .* files and the .settings directory that eclipse stores in the project.

If, on the other hand, you were referring to the .metadata directory that eclipse creates in the workspace, then I don't recommend storing that in source control. That is a place where I fear to tread. Thus, when I get a new computer, I have eclipse create a new workspace (and the .metadata) directory structure for me.