Unable to install SOA Composite Editor extension in Jdeveloper 11.1.1.9

I needed to review the code for an Oracle SOA Composite application on a computer where I had previously uninstalled Jdeveloper 11.1.1.9 so I reinstalled the IDE.

While trying to update jdeveloper with the SOA Composite extension, I noticed the following:

1. The extension was not listed as available for install after using the Help > Check for Updates menu and clicking Next twice (once to choose the Update centers to check, and the second to actually select the desired extension). Where did it go? This is where I had seen it before. Had it been discontinued? How else was I supposed to develop Oracle SOA Composite applications now? I proceeded to download the extension to the computer for an offline installation. But...
2. While trying to install the extension offline, it failed with the message that some components were missing from jdeveloper. The dialog box with the error message listed two such components. This happened even after reinstalling (on mac os x with apple java 1.6 to run the installer).

How to fix this?

In the .jdeveloper folder in your home directory, delete the system folder for jdeveloper 11g. For me it was named system11.1.1.9.40.66.73. 
The folder will be recreated on restarting jdeveloper.

And installing the extension either way should proceed normally.

MDS-01161: Reference "/apps/XXXXXXXX/.project" Has An Invalid Character "." while trying to import files into MDS for Oracle SOA Suite

While trying to import xml schema files into MDS while coding some updates to an Oracle SOA Suite composite application, the error MDS-01161 popped up.



MDS-01161  according to the Oracle Support pages is caused when there are files which start with "."(without the quotes) in the directory structure.

This importation was being done on the MDS configuration page. 



However the compressed archive I was trying to import didn't contain any files starting with "." as I had removed .DS_Store from the directory structure before compressing with Finder using the context menu.

And that is what I did wrong  - using Finder to compress the files. For some reason I didn't bother to unearth, the archive was being read differently when created using Mac OS X Finder.

Solution
The solution for me was to use the zip utility to create the archive in terminal and the import of the new archive ran without issues

zip -r archive.zip directory/