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6768

answers:

7

I'm doing some Android dev, and I much prefer Visual Studio, but I'll have to use Eclipse for this.

Has anyone made a tool that switches Eclipse to look and behave more like visual studio? I mainly can't stand its clippyesqe suggestions on how I should program (Yes, I know I have not yet used that private field! Thanks Eclipse!), or its incredibly lousy intellisense.

For example, in eclipse, if I don't type "this" first, its intellisense won't realize I want to look for locally scoped members. Also, the TAB to complete VS convention is drilled into my head, and Eclipse is ENTER to complete, I could switch everything by hand but that would take hours, and I was hoping someone had some sort of theme or something that has already done it :)

+6  A: 

Have you tried using the Visual Studio keybindings available in Eclipse Ganymede (3.4)?

(You may want to know that "IntelliSense" is a Visual Studio-term, an probably unknown to anyone without Visual Studio-experience. "Autocompletion" is probably a more widely used term.)

JesperE
You also need the C++ development tools installed: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/200499/visual-studios-keybindings-for-eclipse/544635#544635
Luke Quinane
+2  A: 

There are also other choices for Java IDEs. You've obviously found Eclipse, but you also may want to check out IntelliJ and NetBeans. IntelliJ is not free, but has a 30 day evaluation period and a Visual Studio key map :)

Shop around, find one that you like and start to use it heavily. They are all very good IDEs, and I'm sure once you use one for a while you'll get comfortable with it.

Steve K
Eclipse is the only IDE with support for the Android plugin, I could adapt Visual Studio to work with Android with the same amount of effort it would take to do IntelliJ or NetBeans.
FlySwat
There is an Android Plugin for IntelliJ. http://code.google.com/p/idea-android/wiki/GettingStarted
Steve K
There is also an Android plugin for NetBeans. http://wiki.netbeans.org/IntroAndroidDevNetBeans
Steve K
Cool, I didn't see those. Thanks a bunch :)
FlySwat
The IntellIJ plugin looks like it may be suffering from bit rot. It hasn't been updated for the recent Android releases :(. (See the comments and the end of the getting started page) You might have better luck starting with NetBeans.
Steve K
Note that IntelliJ 9 has an open-source community version, which can be acquired free of charge.
Nik Reiman
A: 

Btw, for those that didn't believe this:

For example, in eclipse, if I don't type "this" first, its intellisense won't realize I want to look for locally scoped members

I made a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEVUVYMs6kU

FlySwat
I don't use Visual Studio, so I'm not sure if your hitting a key in VS, or it's just auto completing for you. But in Eclipse you can hit CTRL+SPACE and it should auto complete for you. And it will work for local variables.
Steve K
+2  A: 

If you start typing the name of any class/variable visible in the current scope and hit Ctrl+Space, it'll bring down the autocompletion.

By default, tab is used to move around autocompleted function call arguments.

+1  A: 

I'm gonna play devils advocate here and say that forcing you to use this.myString is actually much safer than just myString. myString could be defined locally (in the method) or in the class as a private member. I sometimes think VS is a bit cavalier about this. In the sample you mention (I saw the video but it was illegible) where is myString scoped?

jcollum
+4  A: 

The original poster maybe isn't saying it in the most elegant fashion but he never said which way was better, he simply said he was accustomed to Visual Studio's way of doing things and is asking to see if there is a "schema" or plugin that might allow him to make it behave like he is accustom to.

Visual Studio can behave a lot like eclipse and they have been stealing ideas from each other for years so I think his question is extremely common. Don't believe me? Search Google for the same question

Give the original poster a break. He has made an attempt to try eclipse. Behavior like this will certainly deter new users from wanting to "bite the bullet" and convert away from MS.

A: 

Steve's answer indicates a VS Key Map for IntelliJ. Dr. Google cannot seem to find it thought I would really be benefitted by this. Anyone know where it is?

dotnetgeek