Eclipse contains a huge number of keyboard shortcuts that, when mastered, can speed up your coding considerably. By using them, you avoid moving your hands from the keyboard to use the mouse. Using the mouse too frequently to perform actions can hurt your productivity.
Evidently, the idea is not to memorize the whole list in order to be super-productive. This list should be used as a reference for those moments when you realize that you have to perform a time-consuming task over and over, and you ask yourself, "Is there a faster way of doing this?"
This is not an extensive list. We have selected some of the most useful shortcuts and organized them in topics to make it easier to browse.
In this section, we'll present some shortcuts that can be useful when using file editors. Mastering them can ease tasks such as code editing, navigation, and code generation.
The following table contains some of the most used shortcuts related to code editing:
|
Shortcut |
Purpose |
|---|---|
|
Ctrl + C |
Copy |
|
Ctrl + X |
Cut |
|
Ctrl + V |
Paste |
|
Ctrl + Z |
Undo |
|
Ctrl + Y |
Redo |
|
Ctrl + F |
Find/replace |
|
Ctrl + D |
Deletes the current line |
|
Alt + up arrow Alt + down arrow |
Moves the current line up or down |
|
Ctrl + Shift + Delete |
Deletes the current line's content after the caret |
|
Ctrl + Shift + C |
Comments/uncomments the currently selected lines by adding "//" |
|
Ctrl + Shift + / |
Comments the current selection by adding /* … */ |
|
Alt + Shift + J |
Generates element comment to the currently selected element |
|
Ctrl + Shift + B |
Adds/removes breakpoint in the current line |
|
Tab Shift + Tab |
Increases/decreases the selected lines' indentation |
|
Ctrl + I |
Fixes the selected lines' indentation |
|
Ctrl + Shift + up arrow |
Expands the current selection to enclosing element (selects whole method if a portion of the method's code is selected, for example) |
|
Ctrl + Shift + left arrow Ctrl + Shift + right arrow |
As we have seen in Chapter 2, Java Development, Eclipse can generate and refactor code for you. It can perform tasks such as creating method snippets, organizing a class' imports, among others. The following table shows some shortcuts for these tasks:
|
Shortcut |
Purpose |
|---|---|
|
Alt + Shift + R |
Renames the currently selected method |
|
Alt + Shift + M |
Extracts the current selection to a method |
|
Alt + Shift + O |
Organizes imports |
|
Alt + Shift + F |
Formats the selection |
|
Alt + Shift + S |
Opens the Source dialog (allows generating getters/setters, constructors, to String methods, and so on) |
|
Ctrl + 1 |
Opens the Quick Fix dialog |
In big projects, navigating through your source code can be a painful task. Big and numerous source files make it hard to find what you want. Having the following shortcuts under your sleeve might be handy:
|
Shortcut |
Purpose |
|---|---|
|
Ctrl + Shift + up arrow Ctrl + Shift + down arrow |
Moves to next/previous element of the source code (parameter, method, and so on) |
|
Ctrl + Shift + P |
When a bracket is selected, it goes to matching bracket |
|
Ctrl + L |
Goes to a line |
|
Ctrl + Q |
Goes back to last edit location |
|
Ctrl + . Ctrl + , |
Goes to next/previous annotation (warnings, errors, and so on) |
|
Ctrl + Page Up Ctrl + Page Down |
Goes to next/previous editor window |
|
Ctrl + left-click |
When a class name is selected, opens its source code (if available in workspace) |
|
Ctrl + Shift + T |
Open Type – Allows you to search workspace's classes by name |
|
Ctrl + Shift + R |
Open the Resource—Allows you to search workspace's resources by name |
The following Java-specific shortcuts are also very useful: