[nfbcs] need help using eclipse

[Bryan Duarte]

Good morning Graham,

I have some possible solutions that might work to make Eclipse a little more functional for you. 
1. A few functions of Eclipse that I love are the "Organize Imports" and "Auto Indent". I use a Mac so the keys are a little different but for me I can just press "CMD + Shift + O, and CMD + Shift + I respectively to execute these tools on the fly. Organize imports is very useful because if you are trying to use a class that has not yet been imported to your workspace it will auto add it or ask you which on you want to load if it is among many possible libraries.
2. I also find it very useful to close all perspectives and views that I am not using. To do this go to the "window" tab in your menu and make sure you only have checked the views and perspectives you are currently using. For the most part I am either developing Java or Python in Eclipse so I leave my workspace set up the same most of the time if possible. 
3. Once you have the views and perspectives you want to work with selected for your development session we can add some shortcut key strokes to navigate between the views and windows. For example I use the "Error console, junit, package manager, and console window in my views and perspectives. To add short cut keys for these navigate to Eclipse preferences in your menu bar and in the long list of settings find the "Key" option. When you find this option enter its tab and you should come across a very very long list of options all in which you can add a key binding to. This is very useful for screen reader users because as you said jumping around the development environment can be very time consuming and greatly decrease your productivity. 

A few tips in selecting things to attach key bindings to.
1. I would recommend that you use these sparingly because Eclipse already has several of their functions mapped to key strokes and to override or change these could cause problems for you later.
2. I typically only set key bindings to functions I use all the time and are not already set up with a shortcut key. 
3. When you are trying to bind a key stroke to something Eclipse will notify you if there is a function already associated with that particular key binding. For example if I want to use CMD + Shift + O to bring up the package manager it would tell me that this binding is currently mapped to Organize imports. This is helpful because of what I explained above. You can chose to override it but then you would need to go change the organize imports key binding. 

Last but not least here are a few things I have set up with key bindings for my day to day Eclipse development
1. Package manager CMD + Option + p
2. Console Window CMD + Option + o
3. Junit test cases CMD + Option + j
4. Error console CMD + Option + k

One last note that I remembered. When selecting a key binding keep in mind system commands i.e. Windows m, CTRL + Alt + ... Do not use these key bindings for Eclipse or you will mean to open your console view when really you will just be launching your system task manager or closing the running application. It is important to choose your key mappings carefully.

I hope this helps and if you need any more assistance please do not hesitate to ask. 

Go Devils!

Bryan Duarte
ASU Software Engineering Graduate Student
QwikEyes CEO

“let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you, all things are passing away: God never changes. patience obtains all things. whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.”
-- St. Teresa of Avila

> On Apr 18, 2016, at 7:04 AM, Graham Mehl via nfbcs <nfbcs at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Graham