Keyboard shortcuts preferences

Some of the keyboard shortcuts used in the editor can be customized. A subfolder of the "Keyboard Shortcuts" folder in the editor preferences corresponds to each of these customizable shortcuts. There are four values to set to define a shortcut: which key must be pressed and whether CTRL, ALT or SHIFT have to be pressed at the same time. You will find a combination of all in each shortcut subfolder. The customizable shortcuts are:

• Autocomplete: Shortcut to trigger the feature call automatic completion. The default key combination is CTRL+SPACE.
• Class name autocomplete: Shortcut to trigger the class name automatic completion. The default key combination is CTRL+SHIFT+SPACE.
• Search selection: Shortcut to launch a search of the currently selected item. If there is no selected item, the editor will look for the next occurrence of the last searched pattern. The default key combination for this command is F3.
• Search again: Shortcut to move to the next occurrence of the searched pattern. If the shortcut is the same as for Search Selection, the effect of the command will be to search for the next occurrence of the currently searched pattern unless something else is selected in the editor. In that case, the editor will look for the next occurrence of the selected text. The default key combination for this command is F3.
• Search backwards: Shortcut to move to the previous occurrence of the searched pattern. The default key combination for this command is SHIFT+F3.
• Show search panel: Shortcut to make the search panel appear if it is not displayed and to give the focus to the "Search for" field. The default key combination for this command is CTRL+F.
• Show search and replace panel: Shortcut to make the search panel with the "Replace with" field appear if it is not displayed. The focus will be given to the "Search for" field. The default key combination for this command is CTRL+H.

Note: You should avoid using key combinations made of only ALT and another key as they are reserved for menu shortcuts.

Tip: You may use combinations made of only one key to create very fast shortcuts, for example with the function keys. To know what string corresponds to a given key, you can look up in the EV_KEY_CONSTANTS of EiffelVision2.The key_strings table links keys with a string representation.

There are three other categories in the shortcut preferences. These can be used to automatically insert a user-defined string in the editor. If you find yourself typing some strings very often, these preferences can be handy.