Unsolicited credentials dialog after installing AWS Toolkit for Eclipse

[rherrmann]

After installing the AWS Toolkit for Eclipse and restarting Eclipse, a dialog appears that asks for credentials (see below). However, this is unexpected as the use may not even want to lok into an AWS account right now. Wouldn't it be better to defer the login until actually necessary?

On a technical note, the dialog requires plug-in activation of one or more AWS plug-ins which violates the lazy activation policy of Eclipse.

[fulghum]

Hey Rüdiger, thank you for all the great feedback you've been sending our way! The intent of this dialog was to welcome users to the AWS Eclipse tooling and help them get it set up right after they installed the tools.

On a somewhat related note... we've seen issues with discoverability of extension content in IDEs, so we wanted to do something to help users get the Toolkit configured and show them how to get started. One alternative idea would be to contribute content to the Eclipse Welcome page, then when a developer selects that content, we'd load the plugin and help the developer configure the tools. Do you have other suggestions/ideas there?

[rherrmann]

I like the idea of an Eclipse Welcome page. That's also the recommended way for plug-ins to introduce new users their concepts. IIRC you can have 'links' on such a page that trigger commands in a plug-in that could then guide the user through the necessary steps.