The Eclipse Foundation for open source development tools is eyeing July as the release date for the 1.0 version of its Orion browser-based IDE for building web applications.
Unlike the signature Eclipse desktop IDE, which is geared to Java and C++, Orion is intended for HTML and JavaScript development, said Ian Skerrett, Eclipse VP of marketing.
“The benefit [of Orion] is your development tool is where your apps are running,” he said. Orion is particularly useful for cloud application development, he added.
Orion was announced at last year’s EclipseCon event. Developers at this year’s conference can get tips on using and extending Orion, which Eclipse anticipates will be incorporated into commercial products. Mozilla is already using the Orion editor in its Firefox developer tools, Skerrett noted.
Version 1.0 of Orion will be available right after this June’s annual Eclipse release train, which features the release of numerous Eclipse technologies concurrently. This year’s release train is to be called Kemper, and it will be based on the Eclipse 4 platform, which features a reengineering intended to make it easier to build applications atop the Eclipse platform, Skerrett said. Last year’s release train, Indigo, featured work from 62 project teams.
