Eclipse

Eclipse notes and tricks.

Check also my blogs in the eclipse category.

My favorite Eclipse magic

(Shortcuts under Mac – under Linux they’re likely the same only having Ctrl instead of )
(| indicates position of the cursor; is Command, is Shift, is Alt, ^ is Control)

• Open Type (T) – quickly find any class on the classpath
• Open Resource (R) – quickly find any file in the project
• Quick Outline (O) – opens a pop-up similar to the Outline view but filterable with support for the * wildcard – useful for jumping quickly to a method/member (much better than search)
• Smart Complete(^Space) – complete just about anything (variables, methods, types, …) including predefined Code Templates and more
  • Class-level completion (press ^Space anywhere outside of a method for all proposals or type first few letters of what you want first)
    • Override/implement method: start typing the name of the method, e.g. “toS” for toString() – or just press ^Space and select the proposition you want
    • Quick constructor creation:  if the class has no constructor, just press ^Space, it should come first
    • Quick setter/getter generation: as above
  • Create for/foreach loop to loop over Iterable/Collection/array – type “for” and ^Space
  • Surround with try-catch or another block statement (do/while/for loop, try-catch, synchronized, if, runnable) – select at least two lines and ^Space, go to the end of the proposition list (via up arrow in the list)
  • Print to sysout/syserr: select 1 line and ^Space, go to the last propositions
• Quick Fix (1) – proposes things you are likely to do; experiment with how the proposals differ based on where exactly your cursor is and what is or is not selected
  • Create new field initialized in a constructor: declare the constructor’s parameter (leaving cusrsor just behind the name), press 1 and select Assign parameter to new field.
  • Introduce local variable: select a statement and 1
  • Complete definition of a new local variable – type: type e.g. “a = new String();|” and 1, select “Create local variable ‘a'” (notice also the other options – field and parameter).
  • Convert local variable to field (cursor behind variable’s name), also Inline local variable
  • Many other – just experiment
• Open Call Hierarchy – right-click, select it
• Organize Imports (O)
• Minor
  • Convert to static import – M on a static method/constant (not yet available via quick-fix :-()
  • Next editor (F6) – to cycle between open files.
• Completion – swtich between insert (default) and override – hold Ctrl (see Java – Editor – Content Assist – Insertion)

Other noteworthy things:

• When you search for class name (Open Type, completions), Eclipse is clever enough to deal with abbreviated forms like IA, IAE, IllArgEx etc. when searching for IllegalArgumentException.
• Quick Access (3) – search in open windows, options, views, commands, …
• Word completion (useful e.g. in JavaDoc): Alt+/  (this and previous tips are from K. D. Sherwood)
• Copy/Move Line (/ or down)

Johannes Brodwall: Some eye-openers that people enjoy learning (copy/move line and other valuable things – check it out!).

Coding help

Various

Simple import of static methods

If you have some static methods that you use often – such as JUnit’s Asserts Mockito’s fluent API – you may enable Eclipse to add the necessary static imports by adding these types to your Favorite imports:

Java -> Editor -> Content Assist -> Favorites, click [New Type…] and select the class defining the static method.

Normally when you type the name of a static method defined in another class, Eclipse will complain about non-existing method and doesn’t offer you to create a static import for the method, unless it is among the favorite imports.

My favourites:

org.hamcrest.CoreMatchers.*;
org.hamcrest.Matchers.*;
org.junit.Assume.*;
org.junit.Assert.*;
org.mockito.Mockito.*;
org.mockito.Matchers.*;

Source: Piotr Jagielski’s blog Working With
Static Imports in Eclipse.

Templates

Logging

From the article The Dark Art of Logging (2010).

Variant A: commons-logging

Window -> Preferences -> Java -> Editor ->Templates.

Log declaration (“logdef”):

${:import(org.apache.commons.logging.Log, org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory)} private static final Log LOG = LogFactory.getLog(${enclosing_type}.class);

“debug”:

if (LOG.isDebugEnabled()) {
   LOG.debug("${enclosing_method}: ${msg}");
}

Variant B: Java logging

As above except the templates themselves.

logdef:

${:import(java.util.logging.Logger)} private static final Logger LOG = Logger.getLogger(${enclosing_type}.class.getName()) ;

Default action in a catch block

Change the action on exception in the template for try-catch blocks through Window -> Preferences -> Java -> Code Style -> Code Templates. Change the Code -> ‘Catch block body’ and  ‘Code in new catch blocks’  template to the following.

LOG.error("${msg}", ${exception_var});

(Default is exception.printStackTrace().)

Various

Test method

A slight modification of the default “Test” template:

@${testType:newType(org.junit.Before)}
public void setUp() throws Exception {
	//MockitoAnnotations.initMocks(this);
	${cursor}
}

Also setUp may be useful:

@${testType:newType(org.junit.Test)}
public void ${testname}() throws Exception {
	${staticImport:importStatic('org.junit.Assert.*')}fail("not yet implemented");${cursor}
}

Favorite Plugins

• DBViewer
• JUnitMax
• AnyEdit Tools (text and whitespace conversions etc.)
• Properties Editor
• m2eclipse
• Git: ?
• Checkstyle

Experimenting with:

• Crap4j
• CodePro AnalytiX

Using Eclipse at Presentations

• Increase font size
  • Text font: Ctrl+ and Ctrl- with Tarlog’s plugin or Preferences – General – Appearance – Colors and Fonts (or just search for Fonts) – select Basic – Text Font and edit it
  • Tab labels: View and Editor Folders – Part title font
  • Content of views (e.g. Package Explorer): this cannot be set from Eclipse, it’s taken over from the windowing system so you need to change the font size in your desktop environment (in GTK/..)
• Hide clutter – the best way is to create a new Perspective for presentations without unnecessary toolbar and menu elements
  • Right-click the top toolbar and select Hide Toolbar (redisplay: menu Window – Show Toolbar)
• Try one of the Fullscreen plugins for Eclipse, f.ex. U. Sangiorgi’s Eclipse-Fullscreen plugin (download into dropins/, 9/2011 in E3.6, Pref. – General – Full Screen – choose whether to hide menu and/or status bar, see Window – Full Screen and Alt+Ctrl+Z or Esc) or M. Scharf’s Eclipse Mode plugin (12/2009, tested in E3.6) – hides the title bar (but not the status bar)

Beware that the settings are valid for a workspace -> you may want to create a new one for the presentation.

You may also want to try the Eclipse Presentation Theme by Zoltán Ujhelyi to make switching to a bigger font size easier.