Installation

There is a lot of information how to install and use Scala plugin in the Eclipse at Scala IDE Project

Creating first Lift application

//TODO

Installing Lift/Java/Scala API documentation

To make learning process easier and more effective there are native Eclipse help plugins that allow using API docs inside Eclipse using Help search, no need to click and focus another window to look for API docs.
These are not hover tips like javadocs, these are indexed HTML docs for Help system.

1. Download
   Lift API plugin
   Scala API plugin
   Programming Scala
   Java API plugin
   Javascript API plugin
2. Unzip it in the eclipse/plugins
3. It is worth to clean help index but it is not necessary:
   

   rm -rf eclipse/configuration/org.eclipse.help.base/index

4. Restart Eclipse and after indexing complete, use help system, there should appear 3 new API topics

Performance

See this thread about eclipse performance (tuning memory settings)