Eclipse Shortcuts

Eclipse Shortcuts
19/02/2012

Editors are an integral part of a programmer’s life. If you have good proficiency in using an editor thats a great advantage. It comes very handy to debug. Traditional notepad and SOPs (System.out.println) are the way we start learning a language but that is not sufficient, so beginners start using an IDE and most importantly know the shortcuts.

For java developers there is a huge list and some popular areEclipse, Netbeans, IntelliJ Idea. I use Eclipse as my IDE and vim as a light weight editor.

This article is for those who use or intend to use Eclipse as IDE. Keyboard shortcuts are very important for comfortable and quick editing. I have abridged the following list of eclipse shortcuts from my own experience and literature.

There is a huge list of eclipse shortcuts available but I have listed only the most essential ones that you may need daily. Download this list as a pdf formatted for single page.
File Navigation – Eclipse Shortcuts

    CTRL SHIFT R – Open a resource. You need not know the path and just part of the file name is enough.
    CTRL E – Open a file (editor) from within the list of all open files.
    CTRL PAGE UP or PAGE DOWN – Navigate to previous or next file from within the list of all open files.
    ALT <- or ALT -> – Go to previous or next edit positions from editor history list.

Java Editing – Eclipse Shortcuts

    CTRL SPACE – Type assist
    CTRL SHIFT F – Format code.
    CTRL O – List all methods of the class and again CTRL O lists including inherited methods.
    CTRL SHIFT O – Organize imports.
    CTRL SHIFT U – Find reference in file.
    CTRL / – Comment a line.
    F3 – Go to the declaration of the variable.
    F4 – Show type hierarchy of on a class.
    CTRL T – Show inheritance tree of current token.
    SHIFT F2 – Show Javadoc for current element.
    ALT SHIFT Z – Enclose block in try-catch.

General Editing – Eclipse Shortcuts

    F12 – Focus on current editor.
    CTRL L – Go to line number.
    CTRL D – Delete a line.
    CTRL <- or -> – Move one element left or right.
    CTRL M – Maximize editor.
    CTRL SHIFT P – Go to the matching parenthesis.

Debug, Run – Eclipse Shortcuts

    CTRL . or , – Navigate to next or previous error.
    F5 – Step into.
    F6 – Step over.
    F8 – Resume
    CTRL Q – Inspect.
    CTRL F11 – Run last run program.
    CTRL 1 – Quick fix code.

Search – Eclipse Shortcuts

    CTRL SHIFT G – Search for current cursor positioned word reference in workspace
    CTRL H – Java search in workspace.

Download eclipse shortcuts list as a single page pdf. You can stick it for quick reference in your workstation.