Making Eclipse bookmarks useful
Eclipse bookmarks have always been one of those things that seemed in theory to be useful but in practice are pretty well ignored. Does anybody actually use them? I’ve been learning a new area of code with the aim of making a few strategic changes. Inherent in this task is the need to identify a few key classes and methods, which you invariably end up referring back to over and over. Bookmarks seem the obvious mechanism.
I have to wonder if the lack of use of Eclipse bookmarks comes down to the simple fact that the bookmark view by default appears in the bottom area where the Problems view, Console, etc. go. First off, it gets buried behind other views. But more-so if I think about navigational workflow in Eclipse, it really aught to be top left, with the Package Explorer or Navigator, since that’s where I initiate browsing from.
I’ve found this simple change of layout to suddenly make them quite useful! You’ll note I’ve hidden all the stuff you usually don’t care about, like the resource name, line number, etc. The description strings are all I need to remember which ones I care about. The only annoyance is that clicking on the description puts it into edit mode whereas I am relying on that to trigger the editor change, so must learn to click on the far left empty space before the description string.
February 28th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Kevin,
I agree noone uses them. I think the fundamental problem is that they are not sharable (as of 3.2.2).
So I can’t move them between workspaces and can’t share them with teammates, friends or family.
cheers
/adam
March 1st, 2007 at 10:27 am
Hi Adam,
I agree about usefulness of sharing. Tod Creasey brought up a similar point the other day so if this was added it could get good usage.
But bookmarks are used in different ways, one of which is a shorter term reference and which thus don’t require sharing (e.g. in my case, learning some code and blipping around to make a few changes). So my initial question is, is there a better UI placement or affordance that would make them more useful given their current technical limitations (which are harder to solve)?
Regards,
Kevin
November 18th, 2009 at 8:31 am
I just think that the eclipse bookmark is unproductive. It could allow bookmarks like Borland IDE does, and if possible easier ones like CTRL 1 to mark, and ALT 1 to go back. Use the mouse is slower than keyboard.