Company to base its RIA development tools on Eclipse's open-source framework Curl has joined the Eclipse Foundation and detailed plans to base its rich Internet application development tools on the Eclipse framework. The company will develop a set of plug-ins for Eclipse that over time will replace current Curl development tools.“Eclipse is no longer limited to the Java programming language. It is a universal IDE for any language platform, as the implementation of the Curl IDE in Eclipse demonstrates,” said Bert Halstead, chief architect of Curl, in a statement released by the company. “Curl is the most powerful RIA platform for the enterprise and Eclipse is the best general-purpose IDE available today — the combination is unbeatable.” The Curl IDE will be replaced with one based on the Eclipse framework. Included will be a set of plug-ins called the CDE (Curl Development Tools for Eclipse). The current IDE will be renamed Curl Classic IDE and coexist with CDE through at least the first release of the new tool, Curl said.The first release of CDE will include Curl Classic IDE functionality such as a Curl language-sensitive editor, debugger, search and deployment capabilities. The Curl Visual Layout Editor also will be featured. Future releases of CDE will integrate Visual Layout Editor into the Eclipse Framework as a “Design Perspective,” the company said.Other capabilities will be improved, such as error highlighting in the source-code editor, language-sensitive navigation, and refactoring. CDE currently is an alpha form with the public beta expected in mid-2008. Curl has become an Add-In Member of Eclipse Software DevelopmentDevelopment Tools