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10 Best Eclipse Shortcuts

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Erich Styger

Yes, eclipse is a very visual and GUI oriented IDE. But this does not mean that everything is mouse oriented. While programming I have my hands on the keyboard. So I want to do as much as possible with shortcuts and the keyboard. The good news is that eclipse comes with a great set of helpers built-in. Here is my list of my favorite hotkeys and shortcuts…

F3 — Jumps to include file or variable declaration/definition. If you want to use the mouse for this, press the Ctrl key and hover over the source with the mouse. Shortcut for Navigate > Open Declaration.
Alt+Left and Alt+Right — Navigate through my source to back and forward. Shortcuts for Navigate > Back and Navigate > Forward and Backward.
Ctrl+Space — Content assist which proposes methods/member variables and more based on my typing. Start typing with a. and it will show me the struct members. Shortcut for Edit > Content Assist:
CTRL+Space: Content Assist
Ctrl+3 — Quick Access let me go to views, perspectives and more. Shortcut for Window > Navigation > Quick Access:
CTRL+3: Quick Access
Ctrl+M — Maximizes the current view or editor. Press Ctrl+M again and it goes back to the previous size. Shortcut for Window > Navigation > Maximize Active View or Editor.
Ctrl+Shift+/ — Insert block comment, remove it again with Ctrl+Shift+\. Shortcut for Source > Add Block Comment. Depending on your keyboard layout you might re-assign this short cut (e.g. if on your keyboard ‘/’ is only reached with the Shift key).
Ctrl+Shift+T — Open an element with wildcard support. Shortcut for Navigate > Open Element:
Ctrl+Shift+T: Open Element
Ctrl+F7— Switch to next view. Pressing again Ctrl+F7 let you iterate to the next view. Use Ctrl+Shift+F7 for previous view. Shortcut for Window > Navigation > Next View:
Ctrl-F7: Views
Ctrl+Alt+h — Opens the call hierarchy. Shortcut for Navigate > Open Call Hierarchy:
Ctrl+Alt+h: Call Hierarchy
Ctrl-O — Open the Quick Outline View. Shortcut for Navigate > Quick Outline:
Ctrl+O: Quick Outline View

If you do not like the shortcuts (or key bindings): go to Window > Preferences > General > Keys and change the bindings:

Key Bindings

Key Bindings

I admit: this is my personal list. If you know about a ‘secret’ shortcut which you would like to see on this list, post a comment.

Happy short cutting 🙂

24 thoughts on “10 Best Eclipse Shortcuts”

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Alessandro Carraro on April 29, 2012 at 10:31 said:

CTRL+F Find in current editor
CTRL+1 QuickFix
CTRL+H Search
CTRL+L Go to line
ALT-GR + ARROW-UP/DOWN clone line
CTRL+SHIFT+R rename
CTRL+A+I Indent all

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- Erich Styger on April 29, 2012 at 11:12 said:
  
  Oh yes, these are very good ones too. Thanks for the extended list!
  
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futurefreescaleguy on May 10, 2012 at 19:43 said:

Reblogged this on FutureFreescaleGuy and commented:
mcuoneclipse has some great resources here for all of you learning to use Freescale Codewarrior. This really helps accelerate getting ramped up on the tool!

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Pingback: even more eclipse shortcuts « anon code, yeah. anon code.
fangstar on July 18, 2012 at 20:56 said:

nice list. I use
CTRL + SHIFT + F : Format
CTRL + I : Indent

What I’d really like to learn is keyboard shortcuts to traverse through files that are already open.

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- Erich Styger on July 18, 2012 at 21:09 said:
  
  thanks :-). The shortcut to traverse through the files in the Editor view is CTRL+TAB.
  
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  - fangstar on July 20, 2012 at 03:21 said:
    
    hmmm can’t tell what CTRL+TAB does for me but I’ll keep that in mind.
    
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    - Erich Styger on July 20, 2012 at 10:17 said:
      
      Have a look at https://mcuoneclipse.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/switching-source-files-in-the-eclipse-editor-ctrltab/. This is how it works for me. Maybe you have a different shortcut assigned to it?
      
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- Musa on May 21, 2013 at 15:09 said:
  
  I am not sure what Ctrl + I does for me on Elipse JUNO, but I will try to test on other versions also
  
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Musa on May 21, 2013 at 15:00 said:

Reblogged this on A big picture of Hadi Waseem.

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Musa on May 21, 2013 at 15:02 said:

6 . Ctrl+Shift+/ — Insert block comment, …
I think it is ONLY Ctrl+/ not Ctrl+Shift+/

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- Erich Styger on May 21, 2013 at 15:14 said:
  
  Hi Musa,
  the shortcuts might depend on the Eclipse distribution, and they can be assigned to other shortcuts. See the Window > Customize Perspective menu.
  
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  - Musa on June 9, 2013 at 15:57 said:
    
    I think you are right. They highly depend on platform
    
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rodrigobraz@gmail.com on March 14, 2015 at 23:47 said:

Ctrl-Tab for “Next Editor” did not work for Eclipse Luna on Windows. I looked at Preferences->General->Keys and found that action was assigned to Ctrl-F6, and re-assigned it to Ctrl-Tab.

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- Erich Styger on March 15, 2015 at 07:29 said:
  
  Yes, it happens from one Eclipse version to another that some of the shortcuts get re-assigned.
  
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