When you visit Eclipse's web page, you may wonder what Eclipse is: some Java library, an IDE, just and editor? The answer is: all of the three. The Eclipse Platform (as this white paper states) is designed for building integrated development environments (IDEs) that can be used to create applications as diverse as web sites, embedded Java programs, C++ programs, and Enterprise JavaBeans. What does it mean? That apart from initially having just an editor with a few shortcuts for doing several common programming tasks easier, you can extend the IDE to any language creating plug-ins that can run on any OS that Eclipse is ported to.
With the multi-language nature of Mono, this seems to be a very important project for future development of applications in this framework. But even now it can be a very helpful IDE for developing C# applications. There is already a basic C# plug-in for Eclipse, that although lacking some interesting features, implements auto indenting and syntax highlighting for this language. Another extra point is that Eclipse can use the Gtk2 toolkit on GNU/Linux. This is great for Gnome users, as it adapts better to the environment.
First things first. You must get Eclipse from the download section. Choose any release you want to download and you'll be presented with different packages of the Eclipse platform. Unless you are planning to work in a plug-in for Eclipse, downloading the Platform Runtime Binary for your OS will suffice (and will save you lots of bandwith). Also remember that you will need a Java runtime environment (JRE), that you can get following the instructions in the download page, or from Sun's site.
The installation of the Eclipse platform is very quick and simple. You just have to unzip the downloaded file in a directory, and from there running the eclipse executable (you must have the JRE path in your PATH environment variable). The loading process is rather slow, but not slower than a few other native applications out there.
Next you will want to install Improve's C# plug-in. Follow the instructions on the plug-in site.
Optionally, if you plan to be working on C/C++ code any time, you can download the C Development Environment from the Tools Project. Just unzipping the plug-in on the Eclipse directory will suffice.
You can start a new C# project just by going to "File->New->Project" and choosing 'Simple' on the dialog presented. Your newly created project will appear at the Navigator on the left. You can now start creating the layout of your project. You can do this by using the context menu on the Navigator or by using the "File->New" menu. To create a C# file you must use "New->C# File". The file will be filled with a simple template of a C# program.
Let's say you want to import the newly created project to a CVS repository you have access to. On the context menu of the Navigator you have the "Team->Share Project" item. By clicking on it you will get the chance to configure the CVS repository settings, and then you will be presented with the Synchronize view to see the files that will be added, and then you can choose which ones to add to version control and which to ignore.
To check out a CVS module follow this procedure. Go to "Window->Open Perspective->CVS Repository Exploring", then right click on the "CVS Repositories" window and choose "New->Repository Location" and fill in the dialog with your login settings. You can then expand the CVS tree, right-click on a directory and choose "Check Out As Project".
From now on you can experiment with the rest of the features. You will be surprised at how stable and intuitive this application is.
Acknowledge: some things were used from this post on www.gnomedesktop.org.