Force.com Perspective

A perspective is a concept used by Eclipse to describe a collection of user interface components. For example, Eclipse has built-in perspectives called Java and Java Debug. By installing the Force.com IDE, you’ve added a perspective called Force.com. Figure 4.1 shows the Force.com perspective, indicated in the upper-right corner.

Figure 4.1 Force.com perspective

If you do not see the Force.com perspective, click the menu option Window, Open Perspective, Other; select Force.com from the Open Perspective dialog; and click the OK button. The Open Perspective dialog is shown in Figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2 Open Perspective dialog

The Force.com perspective includes several user interface panels, called Views. You can see two of them at the bottom of Figure 4.1: Execute Anonymous and Apex Test Runner. It also adds a new type of project called the Force.com Project, which is shown in the left-side Navigator tab. The first step to using the Force.com IDE is to create a Force.com Project.