How do I add eclipse to my gnome shell favorites?

Found the answer elsewhere. The .desktop file needs to be named EXACTLY the same as the binary that's launching.

Mine was something like eclipse_ide.desktop and the binary that runs is just "eclipse". Gnome shell does not seem to like that.

1. Install alacarte program.
2. Run this program (its name is Main Menu).
3. In the appropriate Menu category from right side panel add your eclipse menu item (by introducing icon, name and command)
4. Now gnome shell show your manual installed eclipse in its search and you can search it or add it to favorite easily.

It works for all manual installed program in gnome shell.

In Gnome 3.16 I managed to add an application to favorites by naming the .desktop file exactly as the window WM_CLASS.

To know the window WM_CLASS:

1. open a terminal window
2. execute the xprop command: the cursor turns in a cross
3. click on the relevant window
4. read the command output in the terminal, looking for the WM_CLASS property (it is a comma separated list of values, just pick the first one)

In case you are using multiple versions of Eclipse at once and you get conflicting WM_CLASS values (typically "Eclipse" for any version, AFAIK), you can set your own (i.e. "Eclipse Luna") by editing the relevant plugin.xml in the Eclipse package you installed.

I.e. for Eclipse Luna JEE the file to edit is <install_dir>/plugins/org.eclipse.epp.package.jee_4.4.<some_version>/plugin.xml