---
title: Support for the Eclipse IDE
order: 3
layout: page
---

[[intro.eclipse]]
= Support for the Eclipse IDE

While Vaadin is not bound to any specific IDE, and you can in fact easily use it
without any IDE altogether, we provide special support for the Eclipse IDE,
which has become the most used environment for Java development.

*_Vaadin Plug-in for Eclipse_* helps you in:

* creating new Vaadin projects,

* creating custom themes,

* creating custom client-side widgets, and

* easily upgrading to a newer version of the Vaadin library.

Using the Vaadin plug-in for Eclipse is the recommended way of installing Vaadin for development.
Downloading the installation package that contains the JARs or defining Vaadin as a Maven dependency is also possible.

*_Vaadin Designer_* is a commercial Eclipse plug-in that enables visual editing of Vaadin UIs and composites.
See <<dummy/../../../designer/designer-overview#designer.overview, "Vaadin Designer">> for its complete reference.

Installation of the Eclipse plug-in is covered in <<dummy/../../../framework/getting-started/getting-started-eclipse#getting-started.eclipse,"Vaadin plug-in for Eclipse">>.
The creation of a new Vaadin project using the plug-in is covered in <<dummy/../../../framework/getting-started/getting-started-first-project#getting-started.first-project.creation,"Creating the Project">>.
See <<dummy/../../../framework/themes/themes-eclipse#themes.eclipse,"Creating a Theme in Eclipse">> and <<dummy/../../../framework/gwt/gwt-eclipse#gwt.eclipse,"Starting It Simple With Eclipse">> for instructions on using the different features of the plug-in.
