Oracle has just released the updated Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse (OEPE). This update brings the release in sync with the recently released Eclipse 3.6, or "Helios."
The Eclipse Pack has its roots in the (formerly) BEA WebLogic Workshop IDE - now called Oracle Workshop for WebLogic - which is based on Eclipse. The IDE provided the most useful way to connect with WebLogic from Eclipse, but was often two or three major releases behind the mainline Eclipse release. The Enterprise Pack came bundled with Eclipse Web Tools Platform (WTP) integration, database and server adapters and made them available independent of the Studio IDE.
Besides compliance with "Helios," the release includes support for many of the Java EE 6 specification (released in November, 2009) components like JSF 2.0, Servlet 3.0, JPA 2.0, and EJB 3.1.
The update has much to offer for an administrator. It strengthens the support for WebLogic from within Eclipse, surfacing server administration capabilities. Additionally, OEPE provides support for the WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST), which is a Python / Jython-based scritping environment that can be used to administer the WebLogic server. It is possible to write WLST scripts, leverage IDE-niceties like code completion, and debugging tools, and finally execute the script, all from witin the IDE. In addition to providing environment interrogation using code-completion, there is a JMX MBean navigator to visualize an MBean's properties and reference them from the WLST script.
The new release works well with Oracle's data-grid product, Oracle Coherence. Coherence lets users deploy in-memory caches across a configuration of servers. The support comes as many small changes to a stock standard Eclipse installation: users may launch a Coherence grid, debug against it, an manage it. The release includes launch configurations which simplify things. Typically, a Coherence grid will have a vastly different configuration in production than it does in, say, a developer's development workstation. This can be tedious to maintain because it imposes a duplication of code. Coherence supports overriding certain configuration points at startup - typically through a environment setting. The IDE support makes overriding a configuration easy.
The bundle has a few other, smaller, welcome features. There is support for editing WebLogic Server Web Services annotations using wizards to configure data bindings. Developers may use the IDE to visually configure a JDBC DataSource using wizards, schema validation and context sensitive help. Finally, the release includes robust support for using the Oracle GlassFish Server from within the IDE.