Downloadable at the Eclipse website, Mars represents the work of 79 open source projects and 65 million lines of code. "There are a number of new features in the Java IDE to make it easier for Java developers, like hierarchical view of nest projects, the ability to customize perspectives, new Java quick fixes and speed improvements for text search," Ian Skerrett, Eclipse vice president of marketing, said in an email.
The Eclipse IDE features Quick Fixes for Java 8, providing a hierarchical presentation in the Project Explorer feature. An early access version of Java support is available on Eclipse Marketplace, for using Java 9 within the IDE.
A new project called Oomph makes it easier to install the IDE and provision a project workspace, and Mars features "first-class" support for Gradle build automation within the IDE. A new project, Buildship, enables developers to set up and configure Gradle builds from Eclipse.
Mars leverages the Linux Tools project to build and manage Docker containers and images, and improved support for Maven project management (including Maven 3.3.3) makes it easier to use the tool from within Eclipse.
Automated error reporting has been added to Eclipse packages, so if an error occurs, the user will be prompted to send an error report to the Eclipse project team. Mars also features Sirius 3.0 for setting up graphical modeling workbenches, with capabilities for building diagrams and improved performance for large models. Improvements to the query language make it easier to write and validate expressions. The Jubula project, meanwhile, features a Client API to allow developers to build test cases in Java that can be stored in code repositories like Git.