Platform Debug Options
This is a classic tip I've been recommending to all Eclipse developers I know for over two years. Use it to output additional information or change your program behavior when debugging.
Step 1. Change your code
private static boolean PRINT_PROGRESS = Boolean.valueOf(
Platform.getDebugOption("my.plugin.id/myOption")).booleanValue();
private static String HOST_NAME_OVERRIDE =
Platform.getDebugOption("my.plugin.id/someActivity/hostNameOverride");
Theoretically after this point you can already set these options by providing some obscure command-line options to the runtime. However this is not the way to go.
Step 2. Create .options file
This file is used by the Eclipse Plug-in Development Environment to determine a list of possible options, their types and default values.
my.plugin.id/myOption = false
my.plugin.id/someActivity/hostNameOverride =
I don't know much about option types, but it seems that everything you set to false or true will be treated as boolean (and rendered with a check box), and everything else will be just a text field.
Step 3. Set the options
Open your launch configuration editor (Run / Debug...), switch to Tracing tab, enable the global and per-plugin checkboxes. The list on the right side shows the options from your .options file.
Troubleshooting
If you can't see your options in the right-hand list, you have mistyped the plugin id in the .options file. While the Platform does not (to my knowledge) interpret option ids in any way, PDE insists them to have pluginId/whatever format.