Spring nature doesn't add much

[glenn@exmbly.com]

What does adding Spring nature to an Eclipse project actually do. It seems to only put an 'S' icon on the project folder and adds a Spring properties section to the project's properties.

But what about the Spring jars, shouldn't those be added to the project's build path? Where do I get spring.jar to add to the build path anyway. Is it in the Eclipse plugin directory. If so, where? The Spring Eclipse IDE installation instructions are pretty weak on these points.

[Christian Dupuis]

What does adding Spring nature to an Eclipse project actually do. It seems to only put an 'S' icon on the project folder and adds a Spring properties section to the project's properties.

It actually does quite a lot as soon as you configure Spring IDE with you Spring configuration files.

But what about the Spring jars, shouldn't those be added to the project's build path? Where do I get spring.jar to add to the build path anyway. Is it in the Eclipse plugin directory. If so, where? The Spring Eclipse IDE installation instructions are pretty weak on these points.

Spring IDE is not in the business of forcing people to use a certain JAR version. This has been discussed at this thread. If you want to download Spring do so from http://www.springframework.org/download.

Spring IDE assumes that you have a Eclipse project set up for your Eclipse application with all the dependencies and such. If you want to have wizards to create Spring-based projects with all dependencies you might want to look into the SpringSource Tool Suite.

HTH

Christian