Update 1.31 added keyboard navigation to tree widgets, where it will now filter items in the file explorer tree based on a search result.
Previously, when the file explorer was focused, I was able to use A or shift+A to create a new file or folder in my current directory. I am now unable to do this, as any keystrokes enter a filtering mode in the tree, rather than performing the keyboard shortcut.
The developers have added a setting to control this: workbench.list.keyboardNavigation, however none of the options appear to revert it to the old behaviour.
Changing this option simple, rather than the new default highlight, allows the keyboard shortcuts to work as they did previously, however the new file/folder I create are now created in what feels like an arbitrary location in the file tree, rather than the current directory which was the previous behaviour.
If anyone could shed some light on how to revert back to the previous functionality, or if I am misunderstanding how the simple behaviour works, that would be great.
For anyone stumbling across this question, this has been solved as of the 1.32 update. With the tree focused, press / to toggle between filtering mode and operation mode.
When I use Cmd+K to go to the next occurrence of the selected word, Eclipse leaves behind these red "cursors" right before the copies of the word that I navigate through. If I then edit the last occurrence that I find, Eclipse "helpfully" edits all the occurrences that I've navigated through in the same way. This leaves corruption in parts of my file that I'm not currently looking at, which is really infuriating.
I want to disable this "feature", but I haven't got a clue what to call it, so I don't know how to find the setting that turns it off. Searching the Eclipse preferences for "occurrence" only gives various versions of "Mark Occurrences" for each editor plugin, which doesn't disable this behavior when unchecked.
EDIT: Here's a video displaying the behavior I'm talking about: https://youtu.be/8xeKRLyGSLg
This isn't really given by PyDev, it's a feature added by LiClipse (http://www.liclipse.com/multi_edition_video.html).
After the link is done with Ctrl+K, you can press ESC to remove those links if you don't want the multi-edition to happen (so that when you edit one occurrence you don't edit the others).
I must say this is the first request to have that turned off... I'm pretty certain as I just took a look and there's no setting to do that -- so, unfortunately, until the next release, you have to either live with it, remembering to press ESC if you don't want the multi edition to happen or use a plain Eclipse install with PyDev, but you'd also be without other LiClipse benefits, such as textmate bundles, vertical indent guides, theming integration, etc.
Still, note that ideally, I'd say you should get used to it as it can be a real time-saver -- although I'll implement the setting to turn it off for the next release anyways, as it's something that should really be there ;)
I'm facing a wierd problem. My eclipse, has a google signin button which is occupying some of the space which I do not want to happen. Initially it had "Sign-in to Google" text along with it. I've followed some blog post and set accordingly to show just the icon (I don't remember that blog post link).
But now, the icon is getting replicating .. it is being shown 12 times. It is actually creating childs :P
I've gone through all the options present in Customize Perspective menu, none of them had this button listed. Can someone help me in removing that google sign button from my perspective? One possible suspect is- my eclipse crashes when I suspend and wakeup my machine.
You can use the Window > Reset Perspective... menu command to reset the perspective to its default state, which might eliminate that toolbar and buttons. If that fails, I would create a new workspace and import the projects into it using File > Import > Existing Projects into Workspace.
If you want to try to salvage your existing workspace, it's possible to do so my manually editing Eclipse's internal file that stores your Workbench layout, but it's a bit tricky. Here are the steps I've followed to eliminate a similar repeated toolbar item:
Exit Eclipse.
Find the Workbench layout file, it's path is <workbench>\.metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.e4.workbench\workbench.xmi. Make a backup of this file before you touch it - this is essential because it's easy to corrupt the file if you change the wrong things.
Open the file in your favorite XML-aware editor - most packages of Eclipse include the XML editor that works just fine1, but be aware that if you use Eclipse to edit the file you can't have Eclipse open on the workspace that contains the workbench.xmi you want to edit.
Find the section of <trimBars> nodes in the XML; from there you have to determine which <trimBars> node you need to edit. In your case it looks like a vertical one, probably with a side="Right" attribute.
Under the correct <trimBars> node you'll find multiple <chlidren> nodes, each with an elementId attribute that should help you identify it; you're looking for <children> nodes that are identified as something related to the Google plugin.
Delete the <children> nodes that seem related to the unwanted toolbar buttons. In your case, it appears that there is an entire toolbar that you might want to eliminate, so you might want to delete the entire containing <trimBars> node.
Save the file and start Eclipse on that workspace.
1Some packages of Eclipse include EMF tools that will open it in a special XMI editor that does not provide a view of the source, only a structural tree view. Depending on how you like to work with XML, this might be easier than editing raw XML.
This is not a perspective but a view. You can hover over that bar with the buttons and click Alt+Shift+F1 to check where this View comes from. Then you can either disable/uninstall the contributing feature (Help -> Installation Details) or check where the feature came from.
If it comes from the IDE, you can open a bug for it. If it is contributed from a third party plugin, contact the developers of that plugin.
There is an eclipse bug concerning duplicate view toolbar buttons in Luna that has recently closed as well. Maybe this solves your problem as well.
Edit: Taken from this bug:
root cause is that in Luna 4.4M5 WorkbenchWindowControlContribution.createControl is called twice, the
first time with a null value for
WorkbenchWindowControlContribution.getWorkbenchWindow() while it is
still being created. This is related to what has been reported here
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=427452
second cause is that my createControl(Composite parent) method was calling PlatformUI.getWorkbench().getActiveWorkbenchWindow() instead
of WorkbenchWindowControlContribution.getWorkbenchWindow(). This
resulted in an attempt to create a new Workbench Window, which
recursively calls createControl() again. This has already been
reported here https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=366708
With the old version, we just needed to drag and drop to change the positions toolbar's button. But with juno, how do we do this?
I don't believe you can re-order them in Eclipse 4.2.
However, you can choose to hide them:
- Window -> Customize Perspective -> Tool Bar Visibility
This is bug 364046, and has supposedly been fixed but is not yet released.
In the meantime, you can reorder the perspective buttons using the Live Application Model View. I am not sure what you need to install to get this view -- Eclipse e4 Tools perhaps?
I didn't see the view in the Show View dialog but it shows up with Ctrl-3.
Once you get the live application model view up, you need to find the Perspectives Stack,
which I found under Windows->Trimmed Window->Controls->PartSashContainer->Perspectives Stack.
Then you can reorder either by dragging/dropping in the tree view, or by the up/down buttons in the editor. I had to restart Eclipse to see the changes.
until the bug is fixed, i've found that one can:
figure out the order of the perspective items you are interested in
close all perspectives (or at least all that are in the wrong order
re-open in the order preferred.
if switching the last 2, just close the 2nd to last one, then re-open it, and it will be the last one.
if you want to move the first one to the last position, close it, then re-open.
if you want to move the last one to the first position, well ... you'll have to close all the others, then re-open them in the order you want.
this might involve less work than pulling in the "live application model view". at the very least, it just worked for me after coming to this question in hopes of seeing a real answer to the problem.
Closed. This question is opinion-based. It is not currently accepting answers.
Want to improve this question? Update the question so it can be answered with facts and citations by editing this post.
Closed 9 years ago.
Improve this question
I have been using Eclipse as an IDE for a short amount of time (about 3 months of full use) and almost every day I learn about some shortcut or feature that I had absolutely no idea about. For instance, just today I learned that Ctrl+3 was the shortcut for a Quick Access window.
I was wondering what your most useful/favorite Eclipse features are. With the IDE being so big, it would be helpful to learn about the more commonly used parts of the program.
My most commonly used features are
ctrl+1 quick-fix / spell-checker
opening files
ctrl+shift+t load class file by classname
ctrl+shift+r load any file by filename
matches are made on the start of the class/filename. start your search pattern with a * to search anywhere within the filename/classname.
Formatting
ctrl+shift+f Format source file
(set up your formatting style in Window | preferences | java | code style | formatter)
ctrl+shift+o Organise imports
Generated code
alt+s,r to generate getters and setters
alt+s,v to insert method signatures for overidden methods from superclass or interface
Refactorings
alt+shift+l Extract text-selection as local variable (really handy in that it determines and inserts the type for you.
alt+shift+m Extract text-selection as a method
alt+shift+i inline selected method
Running and debugging.
alt+shift+x is a really handy prefix to run stuff in your current file.
alt+shift+x, t run unit tests in current file
alt+shift+x, j run main in current file
alt+shift+x, r run on server
There are more. The options are shown to you in the lower-right popup after hitting alt+shift+x.
alt+shift+x can be switched for alt+shift+d in all the above examples to run in the debugger.
Validation
As of the recent Ganymede release, you can now switch of validation in specified files and folders. I've been waiting for this feature for ages.
Go to Project | Properties | Validation
click on the ... button in the settings column of the validator you want to shut up
Add a rule to the exclude group
code navigation
hold down ctrl to make all variables, methods and classnames hyperlinks to their definitions.
alt+left to navigate back to where you clicked ctrl
alt+right to go "forwards" again
This is cool: If someone has emailed you a stack trace, you can copy and paste the stack trace into Eclipse's Console window. You can then click on class names in the stack trace as if your own code had generated it.
In terms of actual features, rather than shortcuts, I strongly recommend taking a look at Mylyn.
It essentially skins Eclipse with a task focussed view. It tracks the files you touch when working on a task, and focusses many aspects of the UI onto the resources that it decides are relevant to the job in hand. Eclipse can be somewhat busy to look at, especially with a big multi module project, and Mylyn helps cut through the cruft. The connectivity to issue tracking software and source control repositories is also excellent.
In my experience, it polarises opinion amongst those who try working with it, which is probably a sign that it is offering something interesting... Don't mean to sound like a fanboy - it is definitely worth a look though.
A shortcut that I use everyday is Ctrl+K. In your editor (not only Java file), simply select a text (like a variable, a function, etc.), and then use this shortcut to go to the next occurrence of this text in the current editor.
It's faster than using the Ctrl+F shortcut...
Note also that you can use Ctrl+Shift+K to search backwards.
Ctrl-Alt (up/down) Copy selected line(s) above or below current line.
Alt (up/down) Move current (or multiple selected) lines up or down
Ctrl-Shift-R Bring up the resource window, start typing to find class/resource
Ctrl-O Bring up all methods and fields for the current class. Hitting it again will bring up all methods and fields for current class and super classes.
Ctrl-/ or Ctrl-Alt-C Comment single or multiple lines with //
Ctrl-Shift-/ Comment selected lines with /* */
Ctrl-. Take you to the next error or warning line
CTRL+PAGE DOWN / CTRL+PAGE UP to switch between opened editors
CTRL+E to also switch between opened editors (allows to type the name)
CTRL+O is extremely important for me. You don't longer need the Outline View then (you can close it which will give you more space). Then, you can type a method name or just the beginning of it and you quickly can get to it. I also use it to inspect what stuff is available. For example: CTRL+O and then type get ... now I see all getters.
F3 while an element is selected in the code: brings you to its definition or it's source. e.g. used on a method call it brings you into the source code of that method.
CTRL+M to maximize the current window
As already said, CTRL+3 is extremely good. It basically allows you to use Eclipse completely without a mouse. Just type CTRL+3 and then package explorer for example.
CTRL+F8 cycle trough perspectives
CTRL+L allows to type a line number and brings you directly to that line.
CTRL+SHIFT+G searches for all references to the selected element in the workspace.
And not a shortcut: In the project settings under Java Editor you can find Save Actions. This allows you to set up the project so that the code is automatically cleaned up and formatted when you save a file. That's very good it safes you from constantly pressing CTRL+O and CTRL+F.
Eclipse auto refresh isn't on by default so if you make changes to a file outside of eclipse, the change won't be reflected in your build. this is very annoying if you just did an svn/git update/rebase and things aren't working the way they're supposed to.
Turn it on in windows->preferences->workspace and tick Refresh Automatically.
Local History
It's a great feature. Eclipse has its own mini-CVS for all files in a project. If you want to revert some change you made, or even restore deleted file - you can right click on the project and select "Restore from Local History".
Just saved my ass *tears of joy*
CTRL+Shift+P to jump to the matching bracket/parenthesis.
One key feature: Shift+Alt+T for the refactoring menu.
Ctrl-shift-T, but only type the initial characters (and even a few
more) of the class you're looking
for. For example, you can type
"NetLi" to find NetworkListener
In the Search window, Ctrl-. takes you to the first leaf of a tree branch
Alt-/ is Word Completion. Slightly different from Ctrl-space
CTRL+SHIFT+X selected text becomes UPPERCASE
CTRL+SHIFT+Y selected text becomes lowercase
I'd like to add two additional shortcuts:
CTRL+F6 Switch between open editors (CTRL+SHIFT+F6 to scroll through the list in the opposite direction)
CTRL+F11 start program in debug mode
F11 start program in normal mode
A lot of the key bindings depend on the perspective and view currently active.
My most used ones for the Java perspective:
ctrl-shift-r open resource
ctrl-shift-t open type
ctrl-1 quick fix/refactor
ctrl-j incremental search
ctrl-h search in files (select a base directory and set scope to selected resources)
ctrl-o list methods
ctrl-alt-h open call hierarchy
ctrl-shift-l list shortcut keys
hit ctrl-shift-l again to go directly to preferences to change key mappings
I am also a fan of Eclipse, however since I spend a majority of my time in Visual Studio, I will suggest that you read Eric Sink's series of articles "C# to Java" (parts 1-4). Not only is Eric always an entertaining read, but this brief series covers some awesome Eclipse insight for those who have not been into Eclipse or have been away from it for a while:
From C# to Java: Part 1
From C# to Java: Part 2
From C# to Java: Part 3
From C# to Java: Part 4
Ctrl-Shift-M while the cursor is on a class name in your java file, will specifically add that and only that class to your imports. This is different from Ctrl-Shift-O which will not only add those imports not already defined, but will also remove imports not currently needed, something you might not necessarily want to do.
I forgot about [Ctrl+2 -> r] scope variable rename. Place the cursor in the variable you wish to rename, press Ctrl+2, then r, then type the new name watching all instances of that variable get renamed at the same time.
It's awesome at refactoring Hungarian Notation.
alt-shift-a is extremely useful in a few situations.
I use a lot of the above and also like for quick search: CTRL+J then type what I am looking for, then CTRL+K for next occurrence.
Lately I've been using the MouseFeeds plugin to automatically tell me what the key stroke combinations are. That way by repetition I remember them better.
This link has a better picture and description of what it looks like and does.
Shift+Alt+b for the simple navigation row over the editor.
I've just released this blog post about Top 5 Useful Hidden Eclipse Features. It contains:
Favorites: Types and members that will always show up in auto-completion
The awesome block selection mode: For multi-line editing
The EGit staging view: Much better than git itself
Type filters: To remove awt and java.lang.Object stuff from auto-completion
Formatter tags: To delimit code sections that shouldn't be auto-formatted
Alt+left and Alt+ right will navigate you forward and back.
I find the project-specific settings useful in Eclipse 3.3.
For example, if you have several developers working on a project who have different code styles for curly braces, line spacing, number of imports etc. then you can specify the style settings for the project. Then you can configure the save actions so that the code is automatically formatted when a file is saved. The result is everyone's code is formatted the same before it's checked in.