Versions : Grails 1.1-RC1, Maven 2.0.10, Eclipse 3.4.1, Groovy Eclipse plugin 1.6.0.200902111305.

1. Install and Configure Groovy Plugin

The Groovy Plugin is “work in progress”, as codehaus says. (http://groovy.codehaus.org/Eclipse+Plugin).

For the upcoming version of Groovy 1.6 a first version of updated plug-in (Groovy version 1.6-RC3) is available here :

(Since Grails 1.1-RC1 embeds Groovy 1.6.0…let’s use it.)

Go to “Help / Software Updates / Available Software”. Click “Add Site” : http://dist.groovy.codehaus.org/distributions/updateDev_1.6/

Check “GroovyFeature”, and hit Install… And accept to restart Eclipse when asked.

“Window / Preferences …” :

2. Verify that the Groovy plugin is working

In the project’s properties, a Groovy Builder was added, and a “Groovy Project Properties” item appears.

No change needs to be made for the moment.

Create a Controller in demo/grails-app/controllers, named “TestController.groovy”. Open with Groovy Editor.

TestController.groovy :

class TestController {
def index = {
return "foo" + "bar"
}
}

Try Auto completion : for example when starting to type “new Big” and hitting Ctrl+Space, the following completion box appears :

Add a breakpoint on the line “return ..”. (Double click in the left gutter).

Start “demo-mvn-grails-run-app” (this configuration was created previously)

Browse to “http://localhost:8080/demo/test/index”… And the breakpoint will activate.

Step-by-step debugging (F6) is working.

Note : Since the “index.gsp” file corresponding to the TestController was not created, an “HTTP 404 – Not Found” page will show up.