Customizing the Installation, the Workspace and the Projects

Using Visual COBOL for Eclipse under TS/Citrix

For considerations about how to use Eclipse under TS/Citrix refer to the Eclipse product help.

Micro Focus recommends you set up Visual COBOL for Eclipse so that each user has their own configuration area and you make the configuration folder within the Eclipse installation read-only. (Visual COBOL for Eclipse is installed on the TS/Citrix machine into %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Micro Focus\Visual COBOL with the Eclipse installation stored in C:\Users\Public\Micro Focus\Visual COBOL\eclipse.)

To ensure that each user will have their own configuration area, you need to set up Eclipse as follows:

  1. On the TS/Citrix machine, start Visual COBOL once, make any required customizations to the IDE and then close it.
  2. Using Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\Users\Public\Micro Focus\Visual COBOL\eclipse and open the eclipse.ini file with an editor.
  3. Add the following code before the -vmargs entry:
    -configuration
    @user.home\EclipseConfig
  4. Using Windows Explorer, navigate to the Eclipse installation folder and from the folder properties make the configuration folder Read Only for the group that will work with Visual COBOL for Eclipse.

This ensures that each user that starts Visual COBOL for Eclipse under TS/Citrix can only see their own workspaces and that they have their own EclipseConfig folder specified by the eclipse.ini file.

Eclipse workspaces

An Eclipse workspace is a folder on the disk where the project and application files are stored. The default location for an Eclipse workspace is in the user's area (for example, c:\users\username\). It is not possible to share workspaces so each user must have their own.

We suggest that you create Eclipse workspaces in an area on a shared network drive, naming each workspace folder with an individual user ID.

Also provide a startup script that maps the drive dynamically using share names derived from the user ID.
Tip: Use the net use command to connect to, remove and configure the connections to the mapped drives.

Template projects

Create and configure template projects to distribute among your users. Templates must not include fully qualified paths. You can store the projects in a source control system and make them available so that individual users can import them into their own workspace.