Eclipse Keyboard Shortcuts
About Keyboard Shortcuts
Eclipse provides many operations with keyboard shortcuts, allowing us to control various functions of Eclipse through the keyboard:
- Use shortcuts to associate with menus or menu items
- Use shortcuts to associate with dialog windows, views, or editors
- Use shortcuts to associate with function buttons on toolbars
The list of Eclipse shortcuts can be opened with the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + L.
Setting Keyboard Shortcuts
Sometimes, the default shortcuts provided by Eclipse are hard to remember, or they may not be provided at all, requiring manual setup.
We can access the keyboard shortcut management interface by clicking window -> preferences -> general -> keys (or simply search for "keys"):
Here, you can find shortcuts for all functions. To modify or add a shortcut, click the command you want to change or add, and set the shortcut in the binding field:
After setting the shortcut, you also need to specify when it can be used. Eclipse offers various scenarios to choose from; generally, selecting "In Windows" (i.e., when the Eclipse window is active) is sufficient.
Click the OK button to complete the setup.
Common Eclipse Shortcuts
| Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|
| Edit | |
| --- | |
| Ctrl+1 | Quick fix (a classic shortcut that can solve many issues, such as importing classes, surrounding with try-catch, etc.) |
| Ctrl+Shift+F | Format the current code |
| Ctrl+Shift+M | Add import for the class |
| Ctrl+Shift+O | Organize imports (it not only adds imports but also removes unused ones, very useful) |
| Ctrl+Y | Redo (opposite of undo with Ctrl+Z) |
| Alt+/ | Content assist (saves a lot of keystrokes, very commonly used) |
| Ctrl+D | Delete the current line or multiple lines |
| Alt+↓ | Swap the current line with the next one (very practical, saves the need to cut and paste) |
| Alt+↑ | Swap the current line with the previous one (same as above) |
| Ctrl+Alt+↓ | Copy the current line to the next line (copy and increment) |
| Ctrl+Alt+↑ | Copy the current line to the previous line (copy and increment) |
| Shift+Enter | Insert a blank line below the current line (the cursor can be anywhere in the current line, not necessarily at the end) |
| Ctrl+/ | Comment the current line, press again to uncomment |
| Select | |
| --- | |
| Alt+Shift+↑ | Select encapsulation elements |
| Alt+Shift+← | Select the previous element |
| Alt+Shift+→ | Select the next element |
| Shift+← | Select characters to the left from the cursor |
| Shift+→ | Select characters to the right from the cursor |
| Ctrl+Shift+← | Select the word to the left of the cursor |
| Ctrl+Shift+→ | Select the word to the right of the cursor |
| Move | |
| --- | |
| Ctrl+← | Move the cursor to the beginning of the left word, equivalent to 'b' in vim |
| Ctrl+→ | Move the cursor to the end of the right word, equivalent to 'e' in vim |
| Search | |
| --- | |
| Ctrl+K | Quickly locate the next occurrence of the selected word (if no word is selected, it searches for the last used word) |
| Ctrl+Shift+K | Quickly locate the previous occurrence of the selected word |
| Ctrl+J | Incremental forward search (after pressing Ctrl+J, each letter you type quickly matches and locates a word; if none is found, it shows "not found" in the status bar; very useful for searching a word, press escape to exit this mode) |
| Ctrl+Shift+J | Incremental backward search (same as above, but searches backward) |
| Ctrl+Shift+U | List all lines containing the string |
| Ctrl+H | Open the search dialog |
| Ctrl+G | Declarations in the workspace |
| Ctrl+Shift+G | References in the workspace |
| Navigate | |
| --- | |
| Ctrl+Shift+T | Search for classes (including projects and associated third-party JARs) |
| Ctrl+Shift+R | Search for files in the project |
| Ctrl+E | Quickly display the dropdown list of the current editor (files not displayed are shown in bold) |
| F4 | Open type hierarchy |
| F3 | Jump to the declaration |
| Alt+← | Previous edited page |
| Alt+→ | Next edited page (relative to the previous one) |
| Ctrl+PageUp/PageDown | Switch between open files in the editor |
| Debug | |
| --- | |
| F5 | Step into |
| F6 | Step over |
| F7 | Step out |
| F8 | Continue |
| Ctrl+Shift+D | Display the value of the variable |
| Ctrl+Shift+B | Set or remove breakpoint at the current line |
| Ctrl+R | Run to Line (Super useful, saves a lot of breakpoints) |
| Refactor (Common refactoring shortcuts usually start with Alt+Shift) | |
| --- | |
| Alt+Shift+R | Rename method, property, or variable (My personal favorite, especially for renaming variables and classes, saves a lot of manual work) |
| Alt+Shift+M | Extract method from a block of code (One of the most commonly used refactoring methods, especially useful for a large block of tangled code) |
| Alt+Shift+C | Modify function structure (Quite practical, if N functions call this method, modify it once to fix all) |
| Alt+Shift+L | Extract local variable (Can directly extract some magic numbers and strings into a variable, especially when called multiple times) |
| Alt+Shift+F | Convert local variable in a class to field variable (A practical feature) |
| Alt+Shift+I | Inline variable (Might not be the best term for it) |
| Alt+Shift+V | Move function and variable (Not commonly used) |
| Alt+Shift+Z | Refactoring undo (Undo) |
| Other | |
| --- | |
| Alt+Enter | Show properties of the selected resource, the same shortcut for viewing file properties in Windows, often used to check the actual path of a file in Windows |
| Ctrl+↑ | Text editor scroll up |
| Ctrl+↓ | Text editor scroll down |
| Ctrl+M | Maximize current Edit or View (Press again to revert) |
| Ctrl+O | Quickly display Outline (Essential for those who don't open the Outline window) |
| Ctrl+T | Quickly display inheritance structure of the current class |
| Ctrl+W | Close current Editor (Same for closing dialogs in Windows, and also for QQ, Wangwang, browsers, etc.) |
| Ctrl+L | Text editor go to line |
| F2 | Show tool tip description |