NavTracks
In his book, 'Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience', Csikszentmihalyi explains that optimal experience is achieved when focused attention and positive control is exercised in pursuit of a challenging yet achievable goal. The objective of NavTracks' Related Files view (download below) is to increase source code navigation efficiency; making incremental steps towards helping the developer focus attention on the primary task - writing code.
Available downloads:
NavTracks consists of two separate plugins. One is the main NavTracks plugin that provides new Eclipse views while the other contains the user manual.
Eclipse 3.x Series Plugin -> 3.1.12
To install, extract the downloaded plugin to your Eclipse installation directory.
Installation instructions
Before proceeding, close all instances of Eclipse currently running.
Extract Plugin
Assuming you download both plugins, you should have two files in your download directory: NavTracks[version_number].zip and NavTracksdoc[version_number].zip.
You must extract these two zip files to your eclipse install directory (from now on referred
to as [eclipse_dir]). The [eclipse_dir] may be c:Program Fileseclipse or some other directory depending on where you chose to install eclipse and what operating system you are using.
Be sure that your unzip utility has the 'using folder names' feature enabled so that the files are extracted into their appropriate folders.
If the unzip process was successful, you should now have two new directories under the [eclipse_dir]plugins directory:
ca.gc.nrc.iit.NavTracks_[version_number] and ca.gc.nrc.iit.NavTracks.doc.user_[version_number]
Confirm Installation
At this point you may start the Eclipse IDE. To confirm that the plugins have been successfully loaded, navigate within the menu to the 'About Eclipse Platform' dialogue: Help > About Eclipse Platform.
Click on the 'Plug-in Details' button to display the 'About Eclipse Platform Plug-ins' dialogue.
Locate the two plugins just installed (NavTracks and associated documentation plugin) in the list provided.
Check that the displayed version number matches that of the downloaded plugin archive files. If they match, the installation was a success. You may carry on the the next step. If you were unable to locate the plugin check that your unzip tool is set to 'Use Folder Names' and repeat the above procedures.
Setting NavTracks Preferences
The Preferences view is accessible from the Window menu. Once the Preferences dialogue is presented, select the NavTracks page from the list box on the left.
From the NavTracks Preferences page you can:
- set where activity logs are to be sent
- enable/disable logging
- set the number of markers to display within the Related Files view
Make any necessary adjustments and press APPLY or OK to invoke your changes.
Using NavTracks Features
Now that you have successfully extracted the NavTracks and NavTracks Documentation plugins to your Eclipse installation folder ([eclipse_dir]) you can now proceed to make use of the view(s) provided by NavTracks.
To add a NavTracks view to your current perspective within Eclipse, navigate to Window>Show View, choose Other.
Locate NavTracks in the list and expand it, if necessary, by pressing on the plus sign located next to the folder icon.
Select the view you wish to display and press the OK button. The view will be added to your perspective.
The initial location of the view when displayed may vary. Generally the view will appear stacked along with your Console and Tasks views.