Welcome to Eclim (Eclipse integration in Vim)

The primary goal of eclim is to bring Eclipse™ functionality to the Vim editor. The initial goal was to provide Eclipse's java functionality in vim, but support for various other languages (php, python, css, html, xml, etc.) have been added and several more are planned.

Eclim is less of an application and more of an integration of two great projects. The first, Vim, is arguably one of the best text editors in existence. The second, Eclipse, provides many great tools for development in various languages. Each provides many features that can increase developer productivity, but both still leave something to be desired. Vim lacks native Java support and many of the advanced features available in Eclipse. Eclipse, on the other hand, still requires the use of the mouse for many things, and when compared to Vim, provides a less than ideal interface for editing text.

That is where eclim comes into play. Instead of trying to write an IDE in Vim or a Vim editor in Eclipse, eclim provides an Eclipse plug-in that exposes Eclipse features through a server interface, and a set of Vim plug-ins that communicate with Eclipse over that interface (as illustrated below).

There are several benefits to this approach:

• Easily migrate from using the Eclipse gui to using the lighter and more productive Vim interface to work on new or existing projects, while still having the option to open the Eclipse gui for any tasks or third party plug-ins not yet exposed in Vim.
• Spawn many instances of Vim all sharing a single background instance of Eclipse.
• Seamlessly work in a group of developers who use Eclipse, giving you the freedom to work in an environment that makes you most productive.
• Utilize the full power of Vim's scripting capabilities with support for running more advanced functions in the Eclipse jvm.

Eclim is released under the apache 2.0 license.

2008-03-11

Eclim 1.3.5 is now available.
You can view the release notes for more info.

2008-02-05

Eclim 1.3.4 is now available.
This release fixes a few minor bugs, improves the installer to account for eclipse installs with per user plugin locations, and adds php support.
You can view the release notes for more info.

2007-12-15

Eclim 1.3.3 is now available.
This release fixes some installer issues. If you have already installed 1.3.2, then there is no need to upgrade to 1.3.3.

2007-12-04

Eclim 1.3.2 is now available.
You can view the release notes for more info.

2007-07-13

Eclim 1.3.1 is now available.
This is only a bug fix release.
You can view the release notes for more info.

2007-07-01

Eclim 1.3.0 is now available.
The most notable changes are:

• Eclim has been upgraded to support Eclipse 3.3.
  Note

  Eclim now requires Eclipse 3.3 and JDK 1.5.
• A new graphical installer built on the formic installer framework.
• New functionality based on and requiring the eclipse wst plugin.
• Many more changes.

View the release notes for more info.