How to see actual Maven output and customize builds?

[ykartsev]

I might be missing something fundamental here, but if I need to debug a Maven Project in Eclipse, I'm used to simply select Project -> Clean or Build Project, then look to the Errors view to find and fix all the issues and then debug. But I never saw actual Maven build output of m2eclipse (M2E), like how it downloads dependencies, compiles modules, etc. How can I see that? Also, how can I customize such a build, like by adding a custom variable or specifying custom location for settings.xml using --settings flag?

I know about Maven Console, but it looks like it's still not the same (much less output) as I would see when running mvn compile from the terminal or "Run As Maven Build"...

Also, I know I can "run" a pom.xml as Maven build and specify various parameters, but doing so does not affect the errors list, i.e. it does not seem to be the same as "Project -> Clean...", so I can't debug an app that way. I also know I can chose a global/user settings.xml file from preferences, but I need a project-specific one.

I have asked the same question at Stack Overflow, but looks like it might be a better place to ask here.

Thank you.