How to make "PHP Explorer" (project explorer?) area persistent between sessions in eclipse/PDT?

Question

PHP Explorer is the eclipse PDT tab (the leftmost in standard configuration) where you can browse the folders of your project. I believe the same tab in standard eclipse is called "Project Explorer" but I am not sure.

What happens to me is that when I close and reopen eclipse, although the files that were open at close time are still open on relaunch of eclipse, all my folder hierarchy in PHP Explorer (where I had various folders open at close time) is displayed collapsed.

Is there away to tell eclipse to reopen all my folders the way they were at close time?

Thank you in advance for your time!

Answer 1

Maybe this can help :

• Window > Preference
• General > Keep next/previous editor, view and perspective dialog open

Not sure it'll do for everything, but it should make things at least a bit better...

Edit : I just checked, to be sure : I closed and re-opened Eclipse, and the "Navigator" view has been restored, with the right directories opened.

Not sure about "PHP Explorer", as I don't use that one... But with a bit of luck, it might do the same...

Answer 2

I'm guessing that you are just having too much clutter and need to stay focused on what's relevant for your current task? If that's the case, you should familiarize yourself with Mylyn. You can define tasks (no need for a server to be involved, these can be defined locally) and assign context: the relevant resources involved in the task. Most of the Eclipse views can be filtered to show just the relevant information for the given task.

Answer 3

For the sake of quick access to a file deep in the hierarchy, I use the following:

Ctrl-Shift-R (Open Resource) dialog/Start typing filename/open file

If I also want to see the file in the hierarchy, I use:

Right click/Show In/PHP Explorer

EDIT: I've just discovered another option. In the upper right of PHP Explorer control, there is the "Link with editor" button, and it makes the PHP Explorer automatically show the part of the tree containing the file being edited.

Answer 4

Since the php navigator isn't affected by the trick Pascal suggested I recommend binding the menu:

Show In > PHP Explorer

To something like Ctrl+P

To do this go to:

Window > Preferences

General > Keys

Search for "Show in (Show In Target Id: PHP Explorer)"

Bind the Ctrl+p (or whatever you may like) in the binding input :)

Hope this helps