Tips and Tricks

The following section contains some tips & tricks that will enhance your editing experience.

Keybindings

While the default keybindings in Eclipse are pretty good, there are a couple that are worth highlighting and some that, if rebound make the editing experience better.

Useful, non-obvious keybindings

Additional Bindings

This section contains some key bindings that could make your editing experience better if you are a keyboard user.

Next / Previous Buffer

Switching buffers on the keyboard is Ctrl+F6 or Ctrl+Shift+F6. Most of us don't hit the function buttons without having to leave the home position, so the next / previous buffer is often rebound to Ctrl+Tab, Ctrl+Shift+Tab. As an added bonus you'll discover that Ctrl+Tab, Ctrl+Shift+Tab are used in almost every application on your PC to do a similar function (try it in your favorite browser).

1. Open the keybindings preferences
   1. Window>Preferences>General>Keys
2. Search for the Next Editor or Previous Editor command
3. Change the keybinding to be Ctrl+Tab or Ctrl+Shift+Tab as appropriate

Find Next / Previous

It is worth adding (as opposed to replacing) the Find Next / Find Previous if you are keyboard person. While Ctrl+K/Ctrl+Shift+K are useable when your right-hand is in the home position, your right hand is often on the cursors when selecting text. Adding the keybinding Ctrl+Shift+Up/Ctrl+Shift+Down allows you to select a word (Ctrl+Shift+Right) and immediately search for that word Ctrl+Shift+Down without moving your right hand. To this:

1. Open the keybindings preferences
   1. Window>Preferences>General>Keys
2. Search for the Find Next or Find Previous command
3. Click on Copy Command
4. Change the keybinding to be Ctrl+Shift+Up or Ctrl+Shift+Down as appropriate

Run Configurations

Many environments won't allow you to launch your compile from within Eclipse. Most environments do capture the compiled output into a log file. A beautiful Run Configuration trick is to echo the compiled output from this log file, allowing SVEditor to see the contents of your last compile, from which you can hyper-link to whatever line is highlighted in the output.