Request for Clarification and Suggestion on Improvement of Build Instructions in CONTRIBUTING.md

[hilla-ryy]

Hello!

My teammate, @Vonna9, and I are currently exploring how to properly contribute to the Eclipse PDE project. Following the build instructions, we got a bit confused we would appreciate some clarification.

What We Have Tried:

• Read the documentation and build instructions on the README.md and CONTRIBUTING.md of Eclipse.PDE repository
• Read documentation for Eclipse PDE on official Eclipse website: [Help - Eclipse Platform (https://help.eclipse.org/latest/index.jsp)
• Forked and cloned the repository locally.
• Installed the Eclipse IDE for committers and imported the forked and cloned repository as a project.
• Tried to run the command “mvn clean verify” in terminal based on the Tycho project’s CONTRIBUTING.md which was similar to PDE.

Our current understanding of building the Eclipse PDE project is that you must:

• Fork the PDE Github repository and clone it
• You must install the Eclipse for committers IDE
• After Eclipse IDE is installed you import the cloned Github repository as a project.
• Run “mvn clean verify” in the terminal to finish building the project.
• Add a new branch to pull the latest commits from upstream and push changes to the code.

Are the following steps we took to build the project accurate and sufficient to set up a development environment for Eclipse PDE in order to properly add commits? Would it be possible to edit the Eclipse.PDE/CONTRIBUTING.md file to have step by step instructions similar to the Tycho Github page?

It would be an excellent way for those interested in contributing to have a reference on building the Eclipse PDE project into their Eclipse IDE.

Link to Tycho documentation: tycho/CONTRIBUTING.md at main · eclipse-tycho/tycho · GitHub
Tycho Screenshots: