When you follow the downloads for Eclipse, you end up with all kinds of stuff in your Eclipse setup that you probably don't need or want. One of the common complaints about Eclipse is that it is slow to start up. This can be due to those unwanted plug ins.
I tried removing components manually, but some of them stopped Eclipse from working at all! So I searched around, and this is how to install a minimal version, that should speed up your startup.
- Take a note of your current workspace – you’ll need it to keep your current projects and settings safe.
- Remove your current Eclipse directory – the one with eclipse.exe in it. Or rename it if you want a backup just in case.
- Go to https://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/
- In the “Latest Download” section, click on 4.11 (Since latest release is 4.11, it seems the safest) - in general you want the latest released version, but if you encounter problems, you might want an earlier release. E.g. 2019-12 instead of 2020-03.
- Scroll down to Platform Runtime Binary
- Click on Windows (64 bit version) eclipse-platform-4.11-win32-x86_64.zip to download. Probably there's a version for Mac if you're into that kind of thing...
- Unzip the downloaded zipped file to a suitable place
- Launch eclipse from that place – pin to taskbar.
- Go to Help->Install New Software and download the software from these repositories
https://download.eclipse.org/mpc/2019-03/latest/
https://tools.hana.ondemand.com/latest
- Switch to the ABAP perspective and it should all work much better than before
From Marketplace I install darkest dark theme – but that’s optional. ?
Edit: 26.05.2020
- A dark theme is now available as standard in Eclipse.
- Another reason for slow loading Eclipse is that it is encountering many exceptions when starting up. Check .metadata\.log under your workspace directory.
- For the JAVA runtime, I'd recommend using https://sap.github.io/SapMachine/ rather than Oracle's offering.
