The Force.com IDE is a plug-in for the Eclipse IDE. The Force.com IDE provides a unified interface for building and deploying Force.com applications. Designed for developers and development teams, the
IDE provides tools to accelerate Force.com application development, including source code editors, test execution
tools, wizards and integrated help. This tool includes basic color-coding,
outline view, integrated unit testing, and auto-compilation on save
with error message display.
To deploy Apex from a local project in the Force.com IDE to a Salesforce organization,
use the Deploy to Server wizard.
For more information on how to use the Deploy to Server wizard,
see “Deploying Code with the Force.com IDE” in the Force.com IDE documentation, which is available within Eclipse.