Set plugin preference prior Eclipse start

Sometimes it's useful to set Eclipse plugin preference prior Eclipse start. For this purpose Eclipse command line argument -pluginCustomization can be used. This command line argument has to point to properties file within file system where are specified all Eclipse plugin preference to be set for started Eclipse instance.

Usage:-pluginCustomization <properties file location>

For each preference to be set this properties file has to contain line like this:

<plugin id>/<setting>=<value>

For example this line will set preference PLUGINS_NOT_ACTIVATED_ON_STARTUP for plugin org.eclipse.ui.workbench to value org.eclipse.equinox.p2.ui.sdk.scheduler;org.eclipse.m2e.discovery

org.eclipse.ui.workbench/PLUGINS_NOT_ACTIVATED_ON_STARTUP=org.eclipse.equinox.p2.ui.sdk.scheduler;org.eclipse.m2e.discovery;

It will disable Eclipse to check for updates after Eclipse start up and therefore Updates available shell will not be displayed and will not steal focus from workbench shell

Usage with Maven Tycho

Just set Tycho parameter appArgLine accordingly to supply -pluginCustomization command line argument properly set:

<build>
    <plugins>
        ...
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.eclipse.tycho</groupId>
             <artifactId>tycho-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
             <configuration>
                 ...
                 <appArgLine>-pluginCustomization ${basedir}/pluginCustomization.ini</appArgLine>
                 ...
             </configuration>
             ...
        </plugin>
        ...
    </plugins>
</build>