Project Explorer View

This view provides a hierarchical view of the artifacts in the Workbench, which is customized by the specific configuration of your Workbench.

From here, you can open files for editing or select resources for operations such as exporting.

A typical Project Explorer with only the Java Development Tools (JDT) installed looks similar to the Package Explorer:

Right-click on any resource in the Project Explorer view to open a pop-up menu that allows you to perform operations such as copying, moving, creating new resources, comparing resources with each other, or performing team operations. To see a description of what each menu item does, move selection highlight to that menu item and press the context-sensitive help key (e.g., F1 on Microsoft Windows).

By default, the Project Explorer view is included in the Resources perspective. To add the Project Explorer view to the current perspective, click command link Window > Show View > Other... > General > Project Explorer.

Toolbar

Collapse All

This command collapses the tree expansion state of all resources in the view.

Link With Editor

This command toggles whether the Project Explorer selection is linked to the active editor. When this option is selected, changing the active editor will automatically update the Project Explorer selection to the resource being edited.

Select and Deselect Content to Filter to the Content in the Tree

This command opens a dialog allowing to configure some filters to enable.

View Menus

Click the ⋮ vertical ellipsis to open a menu of items specific to the Project Explorer. Some extra menu entries can be added by extension and may not be documented here.

Project Presentation

Select whether the physically nested projects should be shown as root elements (Flat), or should be shown under their parent project in place of their corresponding folder (Hierarchical).

Top-Level Elements

Select whether the top level-elements should be the selected working sets with projects as children, or the visible projects.

Select Working Set

Opens the Select Working Set dialog to allow selecting a working set for the Project Explorer.

Deselect Working Set

Deselects the current working set.

Edit Active Working Set

Opens the Edit Working Set dialog to allow changing the current working set.


In addition to these menu items, the Project Explorer menu shows a list of recently used working sets that have been selected in the view.

Filters and Customization

This command allows you to change the view for your specific needs. You may select pre-defined filters to apply to the view so that you can show or hide various artifacts as needed. The default filters available with the Java development tools (JDT) is shown below:

Available Customizations > Filters dialog

You can also define your own filters based on the name of a resource. Full name or regular expressions are allowed.

Available Customizations > User filters dialog

You may also choose the types of content for the view to show as well. The default content extensions available with the Java development tools (JDT) is shown below, but your specific extensions will be determined by your workbench configuration:

Available Customizations > Content dialog

Link With Editor

See the toolbar item description above.


Context Menu

The context-menu allows to access some general Project management operations as well as operations that are specific to your selection. Some plugins can extend the context-menu with additional entries that might not be documented here.

New

This command allows you to create a new resource in the Workbench. Select the type of resource to create from the submenu.

Copy

This command copies the selected resource to the clipboard.

Paste

This command pastes resources on the clipboard into the selected project or folder. If a resource is selected the resources on the clipboard are pasted as siblings of the selected resource.

Delete

This command deletes the selected resource from the workspace.

Move

This command moves the selected resource to another location. A dialog will appear, prompting for the destination location to which the resource will be moved.

Rename

This command allows you to specify a new name for the selected resource.

Import

This command opens the import wizard and allows you to select resources to import into the Workbench.

Export

This command opens the export wizard and allows you to export resources to an external location.

Refresh

This command refreshes the Workbench's view of the selected resource and its children. For example, this is used when you create a new file for an existing project outside the Workbench and want the file to appear in the Project Explorer view.

Close Project

The close project command is visible when an open project is selected. This command closes the selected project.

Close Unrelated Projects

This command will close any project which are unrelated to the selected project.

Open Project

The open project command is visible when a closed project is selected. This command opens the selected project.

Team

Menu items in the Team sub-menu are related to version control management and are determined by the version control management system that is associated with the project. Eclipse provides the special menu item Share Project... for projects that are not under version control management. This command will present a wizard that allows you to choose to share the project with any version control management systems that has been added to Eclipse.

Compare With

Commands on the Compare With sub-menu allow you to do one of the following types of compares:

After you select the type of compare you want to do, you will either see a compare editor or a compare dialog. In the compare editor, you can browse and copy various changes between the compared resources. In the compare dialog, you can only browse through the changes.

Replace With

Commands on the Replace With sub-menu allow you to replace the selected resource with another state from the local history. If the project is under version control management, there may be additional items supplied by the version control management system as well.

Properties

This command displays the properties of the selected resource. The kinds of properties that are displayed depend on what type of resource is selected. Resource properties may include (but are not limited to):

Working Sets
Three-way compare
Linked resources Compare editor