From Eclipse to Emacs

Date: 2007-09-10 | Modified: 2009-07-20 | Tags: eclipse, emacs | 4 Comments

I am trying to learn Emacs after about a year of using Eclipse 3.2/3.3. See this post for some reasons why. Below is a list of Eclipse keyboard shortcuts and their Emacs equivalents. I'm using Emacs 22.1 for Windows.

Update 2009-07-20: After almost 2 years, I am still happily using Emacs (now Emacs 23 on Ubuntu). I made a few small corrections/updates to the table below.

ECLIPSE COMMAND	SIMILAR EMACS COMMAND (Emacs manuals use C for the CTRL key and M for the Meta or Alt key. So, e.g. C-x means CTRL+X. For Emacs long commands, you can type TAB to complete the command name.)
Cancel a command ESC	Cancel a command C-g
Open resource CTRL+SHIFT+R	Find file Keybinding: C-x C-f Command: M-x find-file Notes: Type in the file to open. Hit TAB for filename completion. Hit up and down arrows for recently used files.
Save file CTRL+S	Save buffer Keybinding: C-x C-s Command: M-x save-buffer
Save As	Write file Keybinding: C-x C-w Command: M-x write-file
Close CTRL+F4	Unlike Eclipse, Emacs' buffers and windows are distinct so closing a buffer and closing a window require separate commands. Kill this buffer Keybinding: C-x k Command: M-x kill-this-buffer Delete window Keybinding: C-x 0 Command: M-x delete-window
Undo/Redo CTRL+Z / CTRL+Y	Undo/ Undo Undo Keybinding: C-_, C-x u, C-/ Command: M-x undo To redo, interrupt the undo sequence by entering any command (e.g. C-f), then undo again. This undoes what you just undid, which is like redo. See 21.1 Undo in the GNU Emacs Manual. This behavior can be confusing so there is also a RedoMode which behaves more like Eclipse and other editors. See RedoMode on the Emacs Wiki.
Switch editors Keybinding: CTRL+F6 or CTRL+SHIFT+F6 Command: CTRL+3 Next Editor or CTRL+3 Previous Editor	Switch buffers Keybinding: C-x RIGHTARROW or C-x LEFTARROW See also: 24 Using Multiple Buffers in the Emacs Manual
Switch views Keybinding: CTRL+F7 or CTRL+SHIFT+F7 Command: CTRL+3 Next View or CTRL+3 Previous View	After splitting into 2 windows with C-x 2, use C-x o to switch between windows. To scroll the other window, use C-M-v. This is useful to reference one window while editing in the other. To close the other window, type C-x 1 in the window you want to keep.
Find and Replace Keybinding: CTRL+F	Incremental Search Keybinding: C-s Unconditional Replace Command: M-x replace-string RET string RET newstring RET Regexp Replacement Command: M-x replace-regexp RET regexp RET newstring RET See also: 20.9 Replacement Commands
Show line numbers Keybinding: none Command: CTRL+3 Show Line Numbers	Linum (Emacs >= 23 only) Keybinding: none Command: M-x linum-mode For Emacs <= 22, look in your status bar for the line number or see http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/LineNumbers
Code Completion Keybinding: CTRL+SPC	Dynamic Abbrev Expansion Keybinding: M-/ Command: M-x dabbrev-expand This command is much faster and simpler than Eclipse because it doesn't use the compiler/interpreter. However, I think it is less robust for the same reason. At this point, I think I like the Eclipse version better. See also 34.6 Dynamic Abbrev Expansion in the manual.
Keys Command: CTRL+3 Keys - General	Key Bindings Keybinding: C-h b Command: M-x describe-bindings
Comment Keybinding: CTRL+/	Comment DWIM (Do What I Mean) Keybinding: M-; Command: M-x comment-dwim
Shift Right (or Left) Keybinding: TAB (SHIFT+BACKSPACE)	Shift Region Right (or Left) Keybinding: C-c > (C-c <) Command: ??? Note: This doesn't work if you're in CUA mode (i.e. using C-x/C-c/C-v Cut and Paste)
Find text in Workspace Keybinding: CTRL+ALT+G Command: Find Text in Workspace	grep (and variants) Command: M-x lgrep RET string RET filepattern RET directory RET. See also 32.4 Searching with Grep under Emacs I still miss this one in Eclipse. grep has more power than Eclipse, but the combination of pretty highlighting and searching across files is nice in Eclipse. I have created an Elisp function to at least grep for selected text with one key stroke. Put the following in your .emacs and you'll get something similar to CTRL+ALT+G in Eclipse. ;; my eclipse CTRL+ALT+G replacement (defun grep-selected (start end) (interactive "r") (grep (concat "grep -nH -e " (buffer-substring start end) " * .*")) (global-set-key "\C-\M-g" 'grep-selected) I am just learning to customize emacs with Elisp so I'm sure there are improvements that can be made.