Unsticking Eclipse Plug-in Development *

Eclipse is an open and extensible integrated development environment that allows third-party developers to integrate their plug-ins (tools) deeply with features shipped with the environment. Building a plug-in requires a developer to use Eclipse as a framework, extending and implementing classes in the Eclipse API, and calling appropriate methods on Eclipse objects using appropriate protocols. All too often, when trying to build a plug-in, we have seen developers become stuck, unable to make progress on a programming task associated with their plugin. To help unstick developers in this situation, we have built the Strathcona tool that can provide examples about the use of the Eclipse framework based on the structure of the code on which the developer is currently working. In this paper, we provide an overview of the Strathcona, and describe improvements to aid the usability and adoption of the tool.