Keyboard shortcut to “untab” (move a block of code to the left) in eclipse / aptana?

Question

Well, hopefully the question is self-explanatory.

It's so easy to select a block of code and tab out, but how about the reverse?

Currently, I just search & replace for whitespace at the beginning of the line. Anything faster?

Answer 1

In Visual Studio and most other half decent IDEs you can simply do SHIFT+TAB. It does the opposite of just TAB.

I would think and hope that the IDEs you mention support this as well.

Answer 2

Shift-tab outdents again :)

Here's where the standard shortcut keys are covered:

http://wiki.eclipse.org/User_Interface_Guidelines#Standard_Accelerators

You'll find many of the more esoteric ones here:

http://wiki.eclipse.org/FAQ_What_editor_keyboard_shortcuts_are_available%3F

Answer 3

This workaround works most of the time. It uses eclipse's 'smart insert' features instead:

1. Control X to erase the selected block of text, and keep it for pasting.
2. Control+Shift Enter, to open a new line for editing above the one you are at.
3. You might want to adjust the tabbing position at this point. This is where tabbing will start, unless you are at the beginning of the line.
4. Control V to paste back the buffer.

Hope this helps until Shift+TAB is implemented in Eclipse.

Answer 4

Shift-tab doesn't seem to work on multi-lines in Aptana. It also doesn't work on single lines with a single preceding space. Any workarounds? I use shift-tab (outdent) to fix badly formatted code all the time.

I miss NetBeans ...

UPDATE: it works on multi-newlines, if the multi-lines have the same level of indentation. It should just continue outdenting the other lines that haven't reached the beginning of the new line yet. Is there an option to change this I wonder?

Answer 5

In Pycharm Just use Shift+Tab to move a block of code left.

Answer 6

Here is a general answer for untab :-

In Python IDLE :- Ctrl + [

In elipse :- Shitft + Tab

In Visual Studio :- Shift+ Tab

Answer 7

Shift-tab does that in Flex Builder (Based on Eclipse) - SO it hopefully should work in regular eclipse :)

Answer 8

In general Shift + Tab works for any environment.

Answer 9

Don't know if anyone is still looking here, but you can do this by going to Window menu > Preferences, then open the General list, choose keys. Scroll down the list of keys until you see "Shift Left". Click that. Below that you'll see some boxes, one of which lets you bind a key. It won't accept Shift-Tab, so I bound it to Shift-`. Apply-and-close and you're all set.