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Making Life Easy for Eclipse Developers
"Even the best thought out environment can be navigated faster than through menus," writes David Utter. Being able to quickly navigate around the IDE with hot-keys is a useful piece of functionality, and keeping things organized around the developer can help him or her be even more effective. "Most people who depend on a mouse for day-to-day PC usage would be astonished to find out how much faster their work could go if they knew keyboard combinations to accomplish frequently performed tasks,: he says. David refers to the blogs of Martin Ankerl and Gina Trapani who give tips and tools for being more productive and working faster.

Ankerl discusses the use of hot-keys in Eclipse and lists ten that he has found useful. They include:

Moving around

  • Ctrl+J: Incremental Search

  • Ctrl+Shift+T: Search a type, with search on typing. You can use only the upcase letters (For example, type ‘MIL’ to find MouseInputListener)

  • Ctrl+F6: Switch between last used files

  • F3: Open declaration

  • Ctrl+Alt+H: Open Call Hierarchy

Editing

  • Ctrl+I: Quick Fix - press while cursor is positioned at member variable, parameter, selection, warnings, errors, etc.

  • Ctrl+Space: Context Assist - press after a , or to use macros (for, while, sysout). Press in class-scope to automatically create method declarations.

  • Ctrl+Shift+O: Organize Imports

  • Ctrl+Shift+F: Reformat source

  • Alt+Shift+T: Show Refactor Quick Menu

Ankerl also says that pressing Ctrl+Shift+L gives a complete list of all the hotkeys.

Trapani, on the other hand, gives a list of top ten free and cheap productivity tools, in no particular order. "Her list can apply to anyone," says Utter, "and we can see it being of benefit to developers too. Some in the list are very mundane, but completely useful." The list includes:

  • Pen and paper: Keep pens and pads all over the house, in the car and in your bag so you can snag that fleeting thought, get it off your mind and move forward on it later. (Cheap, no computer required)

  • Plain text: Keep a personal todo.txt, grocery list, bigideas.txt, or expense log using a simple text editor available anywhere, online or off. (Free, computer required)

  • Google Desktop: Google Desktop lets you guiltlessly pile, not file, because one well-constructed query can retrieve whatever you're looking for in a flash. Works especially well with the contents of your .txt files. Mac users have got the option of using Spotlight. (Free, Windows only.)

  • AutoHotkey: Script any block of text or sequence of keystrokes with AutoHotkey to perform repetitive tasks at the press of a button. It takes some time to write your AHK scripts, but once they're set up, you'll whiz through canned email responses, eradicate common spelling errors automatically, and drop pieces of frequently used text - like blog post HTML snippets or message signatures – faster. For Mac users, TextExpander will do a lot of what AutoHotkey does on OS X. (Free, Windows only.)

  • Quicksilver: An application launcher and total Mac commander, Quicksilver lets you append to text files without opening an editor, email documents, launch web sites, and much more with its bevy of app-specific plug-ins. (Free, Mac OS X only)

  • D-I-Y Planner: The D*I*Y Planner web site offers an extensive library of PDF templates for refilling your paper planner with just your printer and hole punch. “Whether David Allen or Stephen Covey's your guru, if you're into Mind Mapping, book journaling, or storyboarding, the D-I-Y planner has something for you.” (Cheap, paper/ink/printer required.)

  • Gmail: Tons of space, powerful search, great spam filtering, keyboard shortcuts, labels and advanced filtering all make Gmail the choice for keeping any public, high-traffic email account under control every day. (Free.)

  • Your cellphone: Get information via SMS on the go, email yourself a URL, book recommendations or killer ideas. (Cost depends on your model and plan)

  • A filing cabinet: Get yourself a sturdy, attractive filing cabinet, a label maker and extra folders which make filing easy and fun. (Cost varies.)

  • An inbox and ‘next actions’ tray: Get yourself at least 2 paper trays for incoming and in-progress paperwork. One will be your inbox - for anything incoming you haven't had a chance to look at yet, like mail - the second will be items you need to move forward on a project (‘next actions’, for your GTDers.) A clear workspace is one of the best productivity tools you can have, so make spaces for that stuff that's piling up into distracting clutter.
  Martin Ankerl's Top Ten Hotkeys
  Gina Trapani's Top Ten Productivity Tools
 


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