Mylyn is an Eclipse enhancement (plugin, sort-of) that allows you to integrate task-oriented websites/workflows into your development process. For example, integrating a list of JIRA issues which are assigned to you into your development environment, and then tracking exactly the changeset to the project which is related to the fixes for that task. Mylyn also 'unclutters' your IDE, helping you to focus on only the resources which are actually important to whichever task you have active at a given time.

Step One: Watch the Video

The first step is to watch this video. It's a very good overview of what Mylyn is, how it works and what it looks like/acts like.

Eclipse Mylyn Webinar

Step Two: Install the Base Mylyn Plug-in

My experience is that Mylyn works best with the Eclipse "Europa" release. That is, eclipse 3.3. These instructions assume you're starting from a fresh Eclipse 3.3 install. Eclipse 3.2 users, feel free to update this document with your experiences.

• Navigate to "Help->Software Updates->Find and Install"
• Choose "Install New Features"
• Click Next
• Choose the checkbox next to the "Europa Discovery Site"
• Click Finish

• Click the checkbox next to "Mylyn"
• Click Finish

Click OK on the remaining screens to install Mylyn.

Step Three: Install the Mylyn JIRA connector

Connectivity to JIRA is included in an 'extra' update to Mylyn.

• Navigate to "Help->Software Updates->Find and Install"
• Choose "Install new Features"
• Click Next
• Click the "Add New Remote Site..." button
• Enter "Mylyn Extras Update Site" in the top box
• Enter the URL: "http://download.eclipse.org/tools/mylyn/update/extras"
• Click "Ok"
• Make sure the only selected checkbox is the one next to the new update site you just added (Mylyn Extras Update Site)
• Click "Finish"

• Expand the option tree a bit
• Click the checkbox next to the "JIRA issue connector"
• Click Finish

Click OK on the remaining screens to install the JIRA connector.

Step Four: Starting using Mylyn with JIRA

Did I mention watching the video? It's important!

Hints:

• I had a hard time figuring out where to add the Codehaus JIRA task repository. To open the Task Repositories view, click the down-pointy-triangle in the Task List window (far upper right of the Task List window). Choose "Show Task Repositories View" and the place to add new task repos will show.

• Codehaus is already a default in the add new JIRA repository. Just choose it and everything will work great.

• I use the "Planning" perspective all the time. It allows one to review tasks without the other clutter in eclipse.