Maven Tips and Tricks: Browsing and Indexing Repositories With m2eclipse

September 16, 2009 By Tim OBrien

2 minute read time

The m2eclipse plugin allows you to browse and manipulate repository indexes. Using the Maven Repository view in m2eclipse you can:

  • Browse your Local Maven repository
  • Browse global repositories such as the Central Maven repository
  • Browse a repository which captures artifacts generated by Maven projects in your Eclipse workspace
  • Rebuild a Nexus Index from scratch
  • Update a Nexus Index with incremental changes
  • Modify the scope of repository indexing with a "minimal" or "full" index
  • Disable Indexing for a repository
  • Materialize a Maven project from information stored in a POM

For more information about this new view, see Browsing and Manipulating Maven Repositories in Edition 0.6 of Developing with Eclipse and Maven. Read on to find out how to open this view in m2eclipse.

Opening the Maven Repositories View

To browse Maven repositories and to manipulate repository indexes open the Maven Repositories view by selecting Windows, Show View, Other...

Opening the Maven Repositories View in m2eclipse

Once you select Other... Eclipse will display a dialog containing all available views. Select the Maven Repositories view under the Maven folder in the Show View dialog.

Selecting the Maven Repositories View in m2eclipse

Once you have selected Maven Repositories and clicked on the OK button, Eclipse will then load the Maven Repositories view. This view contains three folders:

Local Repositories
This folder contains your local Maven repository which is stored in ~/.m2/repository by default. It also contains a repository that represents the Maven projects contained in your Eclipse workspace.
Global Repositories
This folder contains any global Maven repositories that are referenced by all Maven projects. This folder contains the Central Maven repository under the repository identifier of "central". It will also contain mirrors that have been configured in your Maven Settings (~/.m2/settings.xml).
Project Repositories
This folder contains repositories which are defined by your projects. These repositories are present either in your project's pom.xml file or in an active Maven Profile.

Tags: repository, Nexus Repo Reel, Everything Open Source, m2eclipse, Maven

Written by Tim OBrien

Tim is a Software Architect with experience in all aspects of software development from project inception to developing scaleable production architectures for large-scale systems during critical, high-risk events such as Black Friday. He has helped many organizations ranging from small startups to Fortune 100 companies take a more strategic approach to adopting and evaluating technology and managing the risks associated with change.