Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Eclipse toolbar housekeeping

It took me quite some time, since I really started to care about all the wasted space in my IDE of choice - Eclipse IDE. The problem is that toolbar contains elements that I never use. Reasons might differ. Some I don't need, for some I use keyboard shortcuts (that I consider faster to use) for the rest I don't have a clue what they're intended for.

Once I checked the options, motivated by the removal of "Quick access" element eating my toolbar space (since Eclipse Juno version) I've found the stackoverflow post providing even more help than I originally expected.

It correctly pointed me to yet unresolved Eclipse bug, however that was not what I was looking for. Still there were other answers giving me what I came for.

Removing "Quick access" element

As this answer pointed, adding:
#SearchField {
   visibility:hidden;
}
to the:
<ECLIPSE_HOME>/plugins/org.eclipse.platform_<VERSION>/css/e4_basestyle.css
and restarting Eclipse does the job.

Removing toolbar buttons

As the other answer pointed, going for: Window -> Customize Prespective ... I was able to get rid of the buttons (I don't need) in my toolbar.
Please note: this should be done on per perspective basis.

Conclusion

Since applying the mentioned, my toolbar behaves and takes one row of my vertical space only. In fact, it's like half empty :)

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