I'm using JBehave and its companion plugin with Eclipse, which is fine, but there is something that makes me mad, it DO NOT react when I hit Ctrl+F, which I expect to open the search dialog box.
I crawled a bit on the internet but except some messages on the mail archive (https://www.mail-archive.com/user#jbehave.codehaus.org/msg02382.html) stating the same problem, I did not found any answer until then.
I finally found a way to circumvent the problem, and I feel it may be of some use to other people so here it is :
I opened the Preferences > Keys and copied the "Find and replace text".
On the copy, I chose to set "When" to "JBehave Story Editor", and "Binding" to "Ctrl+F"... and surprise ! It then showed me that it conflicted with a "Format Table" command in this particular "When" context.
Curiously, this mapping is not shown when I enter "Ctrl+F" in the filter text area...
Actually, the whole "JBehave Story Editor" When context seems totally invisible in the Keys list.
Anyway, I somehow fixed the problem by setting "Ctrl+Shift+F" to the duplicated "Find and Replace" with When set to "JBehave Story Editor", which works fine.
By the way, I discovered that when selecting a JBehave table and hitting Ctrl+F, it actually pretty-print it with appropriate padding in the cells to make the column align nicely :)
UPDATE
Actually I found how make "JBehave Story Editor" shortcuts appear in the list :
In Preferences > Keys, hit Filters... and uncheck "Filter uncategorized commands".
Then "Format Table" appears, and it is then possible to remap it to Ctrl+Shift+F for example.
The "Find and replace text" duplication is no more needed :)
Related
I was editing a fairly extensive ant xml build file file and tried to add in an extra tab where I thought appropriate. As it happens, the tab shouldn't have been there (if we were following some "rules" on What Looks Pretty In XML).
And as it happened, eclipse refused to let me put the tab there. I tried a few times, and sometimes it would "allow" one extra tab, but v. often it would either
ignore the tab
remove a tab
I know that what eclipse is doing is "right", (in some byzantine sense, because this isn't python, it is an ant xml build file, so the only way it is "right" is from an aesthetics point of view) but I think it is "stupid".
How can i disable this "feature" in eclipse?
I assume you mean the tabulator key (as opposed to the sub-windows, that are also called tabs).
Look up your editor preferences. Things that might help are the settings "insert spaces for tabs", "displayed tab width" and "smart caret positioning at line start and end".
If this doesn't help, try to avoid the XML editor by not opening with double-click, but using "Open With .." -> "Text Editor"
In Komodo Edit, an input field is available in the toolbar. When I type text in it, it highlights matching search results. Is there something like this in Eclipse, either directly or via a plugin?
As TK Gospodinov has already mentioned, there is an Incremental option in Find/Replace (Ctrl+F) dialog.
There is also a special key binding for Incremental search in Eclipse (and personally I use it more frequently). From Eclipse Tips and Tricks:
Use Edit > Incremental Find Next (Ctrl+J) or Edit > Incremental Find Previous (Ctrl+Shift+J) to enter the incremental find mode, and start typing the string to match. Matches are found incrementally as you type. The search string is shown in the status line. Press Ctrl+J or Ctrl+Shift+J to go to the next or previous match. Press Enter or Esc to exit incremental find mode.
If you'd like to have search functionality in a toolbar, you may be interested in the eclipse-glance plugin, which allows you to use the incremental search function in a toolbar by pressing Ctrl + Alt + F while in any text area.
This feature is already available in eclipse. No need to install any plug-in.
Press Ctrl+F, and the Find pop up appears.
Now check the incremental checkbox, and then your texts will be found as you type. No need to hit return.
OR
Use Ctrl+J and you can activate the live search, just that there wont be any UI visible, but you can see the status in eclipse status bar at the bottom.
Press Ctrl+J, start typing the text you want to search for. Press esc to go back to edit mode
The closest thing to the functionality you are asking about is the 'incremental search' mode, which is triggered by checking the 'Incremental' checkbox in the Options group on the Find/Replace dialog in Eclipse (Ctrl+F from the code editor). This will make it start highlighting matches as you type, and if they are keywords, Eclipse will highlight other occurrences (references) in the code editor. Matches inside strings or Javadoc will not be highlighted, however, unless it happens to be the first match after your cursor's position inside the editor.
One similar thing (not the same) is just enabling "mark occurences", then selecting function name, variable etc.
Here are the ways the Eclipse documentation states you can navigate the Content Assist list:
You can use the mouse or the keyboard
(Up Arrow, Down Arrow, Page Up, Page
Down, Home, End, Enter) to navigate
and select lines in the list.
But all of the options require you to move your hands significantly away from their natural place on the keyboard!
Are there any other, quicker ways I can navigate this list? Something like tab, or the j/k from vi?
This is a great feature, and you can implement it like so: bind movement keys in Eclipse's key binder and then use them in the content assist menu!
Preferences/General/Keys
Line Down: Bind to Ctrl+K
Line up: Bind to Ctrl+I
(both when 'Editing Java Source')
and then try moving with Ctrl-K/I when the content assist pops up!
In Kepler, as jed mentions in the comments, select "when editing text" instead and it should work.
If you try to fill in the content manually, Eclipse will move.
The search is quite advanced, e.g. "ArL" can match ArrayList, etc., so if you know what you are looking for, instead of navigation you could use search.
This is certainly not a solution for everyone, but if you switch to the Emacs keyboard layout you can just use the key bindings for the "previous line" and "next line" commands, e.g., Ctrl-P and Ctrl-N.
I often use the Eclipse feature (Galileo) of suggested error corrections to automatically create code stubs or to refactor things. For example, I would write a method that calls other methods which don't exist yet, then move the mouse over the error message and click on "create method". Or, change this to the class name and choose "add static modifier" from the quick fixes.
I think this is very convenient because it lets me stay in one place in my code and sort of "remotely" wire up what's not currently visible on my screen. What I think is annoying though, is that I have to leave the keyboard, hover my mouse over the error symbol, wait for the tooltip to pop up, and click on the option (doing that, I sometimes move the mouse a little over the edge and the tooltip goes away again - very annoying).
Am I missing a faster method here? I can't seem to find a keyboard shortcut, but then I have overlooked stuff from the huge preference dialog before.
Ctrl+1 : Quick Fix.
(Cmd+1 on Mac)
Just put your cursor on the part you suspect you can perform an action (correction, refactoring, ...) and hit the Quick Fix shortcut. The same popup will be displayed, and you can select the right option with the up and down keys.
That, combined with Ctrl+3 (Quick Access) gives you most of eclipse features at your fingertips ;)
See also:
Eclipse Tip: Shortcut to Quick Fix
My Favorite Eclipse Shortcut: Quick Fix
Eclipse hotkeys: eclipse shortcuts gold mine.
As an additional tip, a specific type of quick fix I use all the time has a dedicated shortcut:
Alt+Shift+J: Add Javadoc comment stub for current method.
After using ctrl+1 like mentioned in the top answer, press ctrl + enter to apply the selected fix all to problems of the same category.
In general, keyboard shortcuts in IDEs (and code tools in general) are coming from a user principle that holds that the more your hands/fingers can remain poised over the keyboard (as in the f-j centered "touch typist" position), the more productive you can become. This is probably why the use of the number keypad is not encouraged, or other keys, less common to the most basic layout keyboard, are not used. Many hold that useful keyboard shortcuts should be easily reachable from this position.
One thing I will say about eclipse keyboard shortcuts is that if you use a popular Windows presentation utility called Zoom-it, you need to turn that off when using eclipse. There are several show-stopper conflicts between the two, such as Ctrl-1 and Ctrl-3.
When I use CTRL+H I end up on the Java Search tab. I would very much like a shortcut to go directly to File Search instead. Is that possible?
See image here for what I'm talking about:
You can just define a key binding that opens the file search:
Go to Preferences > General > Keys
Type "file search" in the search box. (If there are no results, and you have a really old Eclipse version, select the Include Unbound Commands check box.)
Put the caret into the Binding text box and press the key combination you want to use:
You can either re-use the CTRL+H binding (delete the other binding in that case) or define another one (e.g. CTRL+SHIFT+H). To delete the other binding search for "Open Search Dialog" and click on Unbind Command.
Other solution: You could press CTRL+3 in your editor, type in "file s", press Enter. The next time you press CTRL+3 "File Search" is at the top.
Another option is to open the search dialog (Ctrl+H) then click customize and hide java and task search tabs, next time you do Ctrl+H, file search will be the only one showing, thus it will be selected by default
I actually think the best (and easiest way) is to simply open the search dialog (ctrl + h), hit customize, and then select the checkbox for "Remember last page used." Then tab over to the File Search once. So long as that is the last search tab you used, it will always open there. The advantage to this is that you don't lose easy access to the other tabs, should you actually need them! (working in Eclipse Kepler).
I learnt to use a "pseudo-hotkey" ALT+A F (works also as ALT+A ALT+F), which resolves to: "Menu Se[a]rch → [F]ile..." and has the advantage of being always present, without need for reconfiguration.
I've run into this problem before, too.
I tried following the advice in the question response given by #Martin to rebind Ctrl+H to "File Search" in Window | Preferences | General | Keys, but for some reason, I don't have a "File Search" entry in the Command column. (I'm running Eclipse 3.3 currently; maybe the "File Search" entry was added in a subsequent release?)
Update: As Martin pointed out in a comment on this answer, I didn't have the "Include unbound commands" checkbox checked in the Preferences | Keys dialog, which is why "File Search" wasn't showing up for me. I now have Ctrl+H bound to "File Search", as Martin suggested in his answer on this page, and it works great. Thanks Martin!
I ended up working around the original problem by bringing up the Search dialog with Ctrl+H, then clicking the Customize button on the dialog, which brings up a "Search Page Selection" dialog which allows you to hide or show tabs on the Search dialog. I hid the tabs other than "File Search," which causes "File Search" to be activated by default on future uses of Ctrl+H.
As far as I know, the search window tab depend of the open file you're on when calling the search function. So, for example if your on a web.xml file, it will open the "plug-in search" instead of the "java-search".
Edit: there is a way to force the default open tab, by assigning a shortcut to the "File Search" action in the "Keys" preference panel.
Probably this feature came recently [confirmed its there in since Juno] and looks intelligent.
Press Ctrl+H --> Customize --> [Checkbox] Remember last used page.
This way you are not far from other options if required anytime. So if you use File search often then you will not get annoyed getting what you last chose.
I would like to provide a workaround here:
you can 'remember last used page' to avoid opening it over and over again.
UPDATE: user #muescha, in the comments underneath the question, just pointed out to me that I accidentally answered the wrong question! Nevertheless, it is still a valuable answer (just not to this question), so I'm leaving it.
My answer answers the question: How do I use a hotkey directly to search for a File in Eclipse?
Ctrl + Shift + R works fantastically! Use asterisks (*) for wildcards. It is very similar to the Ctrl + P fuzzy search in Sublime Text 3.
Sample searches using the Ctrl + Shift + R "Open Resource" search in Eclipse:
rea
*.txt
*32*f1*c
*3*1*c*h
Notice if you just put an asterisk * between every character in the search string it works just like Sublime Text 3's Ctrl + P "fuzzy search"! Beautiful!
Side note: you can also use the Search --> File menu dialog to search for files.