A short tutorial on how to install lombok for a snap install of the Eclipse IDE.

TL;DR

  • Download lombok
  • Extract to wherever
  • Customize a .desktop file to let eclipse start with lombok or a customized eclipse.ini

Detailed version

First download lombok and extract it to wherver you see fit. I chose ~/bin/lombok.jar.

If you try to run the installer it won't find your eclipse installation and pointing it to your snap install also won't work. But have a look at *Show me what this installer will do to my IDE installation." You should see the following message: 

1. First, I copy myself (lombok.jar) to your
                      Eclipse install directory.
                      2. Then, I edit the eclipse.ini file to add the following entry:
                      -javaagent:lombok.jar

So this is what we'll end up doing (sort of). Since snaps are immutable we cannot copy lombok.jar to the installation directory. That's why we've chosen another dir. Now all that's left to do is pointing eclipse to it.

To do this, create or copy an eclipse.ini file to your preferred location and add the following line to the bottom:
-javaagent:/PATH/TO/YOUR/LOMBOK.jar. You can copy the original one from /snap/eclipse/current/eclipse.ini.

Now create a .desktop file like ~/.local/share/applications/eclipse_eclipse.desktop with the following content: 

[Desktop Entry]
                      X-SnapInstanceName=eclipse
                      Version=1.0
                      Type=Application
                      Name=Eclipse+Lombok
                      Icon=/snap/eclipse/40/icon.xpm
                      Exec=env BAMF_DESKTOP_FILE_HINT=/var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/eclipse_eclipse.desktop
                      /snap/bin/eclipse --launcher.ini /PATH/TO/YOUR/ECLIPSE.INI %U
                      Comment=Eclipse IDE
                      Categories=Development;IDE;
                      Terminal=false
                      StartupWMClass=eclipse

With this in place you'll find an Eclipse+Lombok entry in your applications menu. Happy coding!

References