Automating the export of a legacy eclipse e4 application

Question

I've had a legacy eclipse e4 application product dropped in my lap. Plugin-based, circa 2014. Right now the build process is "Run eclipse, then do these point-n-click things". It needs the build & product-export processes automated. That is, made invoke-able from a command line.

Build automation was trivial. The Eclipse-created ant scripts work fine.

Product-export automation is proving quite annoying.

So far I see four options:

1. Invoke eclipse's Product Export Wizard from the command line.

   • Identifying the wizard specifics was easy (via the Plugin Selection Spy).
   • But there seems to be no way to make eclipse run a wizard from the command line.

2. Convert the existing plugin project to Maven/Tycho.

   • Theoretically modern and nice, but the details are messy.
   • Configure | Convert to Maven Project runs with no errors, but the resulting maven configuration is badly broken.
   • The project also has numerous out-of-date dependencies with no standard maven repo.
   • So a conversion to maven is far from straightforward.

3. Completely reorganize under a new maven/tycho project, just bringing over source files, icons, etc.

   • This still has the dependency issues, plus whatever unknowns crop up.
   • It would also trigger an in-depth QA cycle. I'd rather avoid that.

4. Create a second e4 application that (using EASE) runs the product-export wizard on the existing project.

   • IMO this is a blatant hack. I hate this idea, even though it would probably work.

Note: This is eclipse 4.15 on Windows. The installation is very fragile. It cannot be easily updated, because some of the code depends on the out-of-date dependencies.

I'd really prefer #1. Its non-invasive and bypasses a whole raft of issues. But I'm stuck on the wizard-from-command-line.

Anyone done this particular type of eclipse automation?