For those who may be new to the Eclipse IDE, here’s a list of common shortcuts I use to help me access resources and find code quickly.

Open Resource (CTRL+SHIFT+R)

This shortcut opens a dialog where you can type in the first few letters of a filename you want to open and a list of matching filenames show up beneath. Alternatively, you can highlight a filename in your code, and it will be pre-populated in the dialog search field.

Working Sets

If you work in an environment with many projects going on at once, your Navigator window can quickly get cluttered and confusing. The best way around this is working sets. You can group 1 or more projects into a working set that, when chosen, will only show those projects in the Navigator.

Outline View

Have large XML or Javascript files? Having a hard time finding methods or elements in the haze of code? The Outline view will save you plenty of time.

Quick Switch (CTRL+E)

Whether you’re working on fixing a system-wide bug, or making style changes to many pages in your site, sometimes you just can’t help having 10 files open at one time. Since Eclipse will only show 6 of those in the tabs, you can easily switch to any of the files with this handy shortcut.

This is more a personal entry than anything else. It’s listing of all the plugins and setup tweaks that I need for every day development.

1. Download Eclipse classic version. Unzip directly to root folder of work drive
2. Do a file search of your Eclipse installation directory (including subdirectories) for *.zip and delete all of them
3. Install Subversive – which will install Mylyn if you choose the integration – and the Subversive Connectors
4. Download XMLBuddy
5. Download Logwatcher
6. Download JSEclipse
7. Install QuickREx. Update site: http://www.bastian-bergerhoff.com/eclipse/features
8. Install CFEclipse. Update site: http://www.cfeclipse.org/update
9. Install the CSS and HTML Aptana editors. Update site: http://update.aptana.com/update/studio/3.2/
10. SQL Explorer. Update site: http://eclipsesql.sourceforge.net/

previous to finding LogWatcher plugin for Eclipse, I always used the Windows tail log viewer called Baretail. As usual, though, I’d end up with 4 extra windows open on my machine cluttering up the taskbar.

LogWatcher allows me to do everything that Baretail did, and it’s integrated into Eclipse allowing me to easily open logs, switch view, and filter the views.

Can’t live without it now.

technorati tags:eclipse, logs, plugins

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QuickREx 2.0.0 [link]

QuickREx is an Eclipse plugin that creates a view in which you can enter in your regular expression and then try several different test strings to check if it’s the one you want. The expressions are checked “against the test-text on the fly, matches are highlighted and you can navigate between the matches. You can also navigate through groups within each match (if groups are defined in your regular expression).”

This is one Eclipse plugin that I don’t think I could live without. I use it constantly, whether build regex for part of an application, or even trying to search for some tricky bit of code in my system.