General preference
page.The user interface is navigable using the keyboard. The Tab key is used to iterate through the controls in a window (for example, a dialog, or the current perspective's views and editors and the main controls for the Workbench window). To tab out of views that use the Tab key (such as editors) use Ctrl+Tab. When the focus is on an editor or view tab, pressing the left/right arrow key moves to the previous/next tab and pressing Enter moves the focus to the current selection in the editor or view.
Most menus are assigned mnemonics for each entry which allow you to select them by typing the underlined letter instead of the mouse. You can also select an item by moving through the menus and sub-menus with the arrow keys.
The various menus available can be accessed using the keyboard in the following ways:
Mnemonics are assigned to most control labels (e.g., buttons, checkboxes, radio buttons, etc.) in dialog boxes, preference pages, and property pages. To access the control associated with a label, use the Alt key along with the letter that is underlined in the label.
Navigation context is saved for the packages, navigator views, Workbench preferences and properties dialogs. The selected page for the preferences and properties dialog is saved between invocations of the dialog but are not saved between workbench invocations.
To switch between editors, views and perspectives, the workbench provides a cycling function that is invoked by Ctrl and a function key. All of these cycling functions recall the last thing selected to allow for rapid cycling back and forth between two items. The cycling functions are
If you use the "StickyKeys" input, you might need to enable the "Keep next/previous editor, view and perspectives
dialog open" option on the
General preference
page.
Also, Ctrl+E can be used to activate the editor drop-down, and Ctrl+PageUp and Ctrl+PageDown can be used for switching between open editors, or between views within the same context.
Many of the actions in Eclipse have an accelerator assigned to them. For additional information on accelerators, see Keys.
To quickly access UI elements such as views, commands, preference pages, and others, you can use the Find Actions
dialog, available under Window > Navigation > Find
Actions and bound to Ctrl+3 by default. Start typing in the filter field to see matches. For example,
to open the help view, type Ctrl+3 followed by "help". One of the first matches will be to open the help view;
other matches show commands and preference pages related to help. You can use the arrow keys to select a different
match for a given filter string. Press Enter to select the highlighted entry. This will execute the command, or open
the view, perspective, or wizard etc.
For links embedded in dialogs, such as the links between preference pages, or hyper-links in the About dialog, press "Space" key to activate the currently selected link.
You can adjust size of most views and editors using commands in the "Size" system menu. By default the system menu for the active part is bound to Alt+"-". After a "Size" submenu (Left, Right, Top, or Bottom) is selected, the selected part's side will be highlighted and can be moved using the arrow keys.
You can navigate the help system by keyboard using the following key combinations:
Most labels of controls on help system pop-up dialogs have mnemonics are assigned to them. To access the control associated with a label, use the Alt key along with the letter that is underlined.