Eclipse editor problem

forbairt

Not exactly a programming question but its related to programming.

I tend to indent my code and can't seem how to figure out how to get it to indent in Eclipse ... I've had a look online ... and can't find anything that helps solve my problem

I've gone to Windows -> Preferences -> General -> Keys and set the binding ...

Its there as CTRL + i ... this works to a certain degree ... it'll only indent once

I've used other editors before and they've allowed me to indent and "dedent" ? and set up number of spaces for each ... as well as selecting blocks of code to indent

Anyways any help greatly appreciated

James

themole

If you just want to indent one space, use tab.

CTRL+i is automatic indentation but it only works on the selected code. You can use CTRL+a to select all of the file then CTRL+i to correct the indentation.

If you want to change the way eclipse automatically indents then you will have to change the workspace/project settings. Not sure exactly where the style setting is but if you dig around window->preferences you may find something.

forbairt

cheers for the response ... actually hadn't realised tab would indent blocks of text ... and I've set the tab to spaces

Now to figure out how to remove spaces at the start

themole

No worries.

You shouldn't need to tab anyway. I find the default indenting good. You know i presume that if you start a new { and press return that it automatically creates the closing } and indents appropriatly.

What default indenting do you not like?

forbairt

I guess I'm just not used to having default indenting ... having used various plain text editors for the most part ... didn't really like previous versions of eclipse as I found them a bit unstable on a windows platform.. and I've just installed it again recently after reading a good article on it and am kinda going wow

I don't like 4 spaces for an tab indent ... hence I use 2 spaces ...I also prefer spaces to tabs

themole

forbairt wrote:

I don't like 4 spaces for an tab indent ... hence I use 2 spaces ...I also prefer spaces to tabs

Go into window->preferences

Then select java->code style-> formatter

You should be able to create a new formatter profile in which you change the indenting to 2 spaces instead of a tab.

Then stop using the tab button

forbairt

ok thats powerful ... thats nice ... thats shiny ...

you've made my day, well so to speak thanks for the help

themole

No worries.