Quick Access (Ctrl+3) is bliss!
Are you one of those developers who try to get as much done as possible without lifting your fingers from the keyboard?
If you are, then you will love the new Quick Access (Ctrl+3) command introduced in Eclipse 3.3 M7. It allows you to access UI-elements - like Views, Perspectives, Commands, etc. - by just typing their name. And it supports Camel Case too.
- Open the Navigator View? Ctrl+3, Navi, return
- Debug Last Launched? Ctrl+3, DLL, return
- Open the Debug Perspective? Ctrl+3, Perspectives D (Perspectives Debug), return
- Return to the class WorkbenchAdvisor in an open editor? Ctrl+3, WorkbenchA, return (*)
Another subtle nicety is that Quick Access remembers the previously used choices, so the next time you press Ctrl+3 these are shown first.
(*) In the last example the file name is not matched when entering "WA". It seems that capital characters must be preceded by a whitespace in order to be picked up by the camel case matcher. E.g. "CC" would match Camel Case but not CamelCase.
11 comments:
I agree, this is the next generation of the "Ctrl+E" modifier :)
Whoa, looks like the Quicksilver for OS X. Will be a miracle of usability if they implement it right.
If only 'PD' actually opened the Debug perspective. Instead I get Plug-in Dependencies.
Still a cool feature.
Curtis,
thanks, you are right :).
I believe the reason for that behavior is that Quick Access resorts the list based on what you choose previously.
Anyway, I'll update the post so that it is less ambiguous.
Thanks for the kind words! As for the camel case matching, see [1], this should make it easier to get back to editors quickly.
The QuickAccess dialog remembers a list of previous choices, so that these can be found faster the next time. It also remembers, for specific search inputs, which entry was chosen and will select that the next time. So for example, if you would like to use "PD" for the Debug perspective, type "PD" and select the entry for the perspective. When you bring up the dialog again and type "PD", the selected match will be "Perspective: Debug".
[1] https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=185824
Hi Elias,
Thanks for the feedback. I filed (and fixed) a bug [1] about the missing camel case matching.
Curtis, if you want "PD" to stand for the Debug perspective, just type "PD" once and pick the entry for the perspective. Next time, entering "PD" will select that same entry.
[1]
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=185824
One more reson to put the Ctrl on Caps Lock key.
I got this comment via email:
---
Greetings Elias,
I'm just now starting to work with Eclipse 3.3, and discovered the quick
access function (ctrl-3). I noted your blog entry--thanks for posting
it.
Do you know how to prune the list of recently used commands? I notice
that it saves this list upon exit. I figure at some point it will
contain commands that I probably don't intend to use again.
Thanks,
Jeff L.
---
After looking at the code, it seems that the 60 most recently used items are remembered (though at most 20 matches are shown). The list of commands is persisted in the .metadata folder of a workspace, in:
your-workspace\.metadata\.plugins\
org.eclipse.ui.workbench\dialog_settings.xml
To prune the list you could remove the following section from that xml file:
<section name="org.eclipse.ui.internal.QuickAccess">
...
</section>
Note that manually modifying the metadata -- like modifying the windows registry -- is something you should do very carefully, as mistakes can have unintended consequences.
If you are interested in the details have a look at the class org.eclipse.ui.internal.quickaccess.QuickAccessDialog in the org.eclipse.ui.workbench plug-in - esp. at the methods addPreviousPick,
getDialogSettings, storeDialog(...), restoreDialog(...), computeMatchingEntries(...)
Regards,
Elias.
Helpful post. I have to share this with my colleagues.
Prune solution was also resourceful.
Thanks for Post..
how can wqe remove 'Quick access' thing?
(my screen is pretty small and have no use at all for it)
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