Changing Eclipse RCP application workspace

We are developing an Eclipse RCP application and we wanted the default location of workspace to be under user's home directory and not under current directory (which is the default). By googling, I found that I can use -data program argument. But, when I put that option in .ini file it did not work. Some posts said that I should put the path argument after data in double quotes for it to work. But, that is not true either.

Finally, it turned out that I should specify the path in the next line after -data. Specifying the path in next line is the key here. So, in your application .ini file, it should look like:

-data
C:\MyAppWorkspace

Also, make sure that this (or any other program argument) appear before vm arguments.

But, we did not want to hardcode the path and instead wanted to point it to users home directory. For this, you could use:

-data
@user.home/MyAppWorkspace

This program argument can also be supplied as command line parameter. For example, eclipse.exe -data @user.home/MyAppWorkspace would work. Also, this could be supplied in the shortcut target in windows, if the application needs to be launched using double click.

In your RCP application, you can just specify these program arguments in "Launching" tab in your application .product editor. When you export your product, it will put the appropriate entry in your application .ini file.