I am using Eclipse Ganymede for about three months now (since RC5 or RC6) and I am really excited about the new version. Here are my favorite improvements:
- Performance
- Java compile on multi-CPU machines – the Eclipse Compiles now takes advantage of multi-threading capabilities of multi-CPU machines. Builds are a lot faster!
- UI improvements
- I am a Firefox user so I am happy that it is now possible to close tabs by clicking on them with the middle mouse button
- Focus on tooltips on mouse over – this means you do not have to press F2 to focus a tooltip. It allows selecting text inside a tooltip just by moving the mouse into it.

- Quickfixes are focused on mouse over too. No double clicking on the small warning icon in front of the code line anymore – just moving the mouse over the wavy line below the bad code and click on the hyperlinked quickfix.
- Debug tooltips show more detailed information – like in the variable view.
- Values of constants are shown in tooltips too on mouseover

- Rearranging code elements by drag and drop in the outline

- Coding
- Code completion helps with casts – it reads the type of the instanceof condition and automatically offers more methods

Afterwards it adds the necessary cast

- Convert to StringBuffer quick assist – is useful sometimes when refactoring bad usage of String concatenation

- Formatting and cleanup
- Format edited lines only – this setting allows you to format the code you added or changed and leaving the rest of the class untouched
- The new cleanup settings allow to correct indentation and adding unimplemented methods automatically
- Undo formatting for a set of Java elements – If you format your whole source or a package it can be undone again
- Comments are formatted at the same time as code is formatted – happens in one pass and is a lot faster (for big classes)
See the New and Noteworthy for the whole list of new features.
There are a lot of plugins that are released simultaneous in new versions:
- Web Tools Project version 3.0 – now includes a very nice JavaScript editor that allows to format JavaScript code in the same way as it is possible with Java code
- Subversive version 1.0 – the official SVN plugin the Eclipse project chose
- Mylyn 3.0 – no list of changes available until now
Thanks to the Eclipse team for bringing us this exciting new version of such a great tool!