Navigating the user interface by using the keyboard

The user interface is navigable using the keyboard. The Tab key is used to iterate through the controls in a particular scope (for example, a dialog or a view and its related icons). To navigate to the main controls for the Workbench window or to tab out of views that use the Tab key (such as editors) use Ctrl+Tab.

Menus

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 submenus with the arrow keys.

The various menus available can be accessed using the keyboard in the following ways:

• F10 accesses the menus on the main menu bar.
• Shift + F10 pops up the context menu for the current view
• Ctrl+F10 will pull down the pull down menu for the current view if there is one.
• Alt - pops up the main view menu
• Alt + mnemonic will activate the Workbench menu for a particular entry (i.e. Alt + W will bring down the Window menu)

Controls

Mnemonics are assigned to most labels of controls (for example, buttons, check boxes, radio buttons) 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

Navigation context is saved for the packages and navigator views and for the Workbench preferences and properties dialogs. The expanded state of the tree in the packages and resource views are saved between Workbench sessions. The selected page for the preferences and properties dialog is saved between invocations of the dialog but are not saved between workbench invocations.

Cycling Editors, Views and Perspectives

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

• Ctrl+F6 - Cycle to Editor
• Ctrl+F7 - Cycle to View
• Ctrl+F8 - Cycle to Perspective

Accelerators

Many of the actions in Eclipse have an accelerator assigned to them. For the full list of these accelerators see the Keyboard shortcuts reference below.

Help system

You can navigate the help system by keyboard using the following key combinations:

• Pressing Tab inside a frame (page) takes you to the next link, button or topic node.
• To expand/collapse a tree node, press Right/Left arrows.
• To move to the next topic node, press Down arrow or Tab
• To move to the previous topic node, press Up arrow or Shift+Tab
• To scroll all the way up or down press Home or End.
• To go back press Alt+Left arrow; to go forward press Alt+Right arrow.
• To go to the next frame press Ctrl+Tab. There are quite a number of frames in the help system.
• To move to previous frame, press Shift+Ctrl+Tab.
• To print the current page or active frame, press Ctrl+P.

Accessibility Features in Eclipse
Changing the key bindings
Keyboard shortcuts
Online help system

Font and color settings using the Window Preferences