By having the Eclipse as a frontend UI to bitbake server, eclipse may talk to bitbake server, enable the user to glimpse on the variables' values when editing the recipes, try out building the recipe being edited, etc. This requires new features both in eclipse plugin and bitbake server.
See the bitbake patch http://git.yoctoproject.org/cgit/cgit.cgi/poky/commit/?id=959981da53913090575e16d6d942148c24988615 and also the series of patches in Eclipse-plugin repository.
cc Hongna here, who could help to update bug status for ADT.
sorry for late verify in 1.3_M2 RC1. git branch: poky/master git info: eb0cb7e8234f5d2e5623406e9660be91cf52f65e