Can I make an Eclipse keyboard shortcut to toggle the view of the Console?

Question

I don't always want it up, I'm on a laptop screen so it'd be nice to have the vertical screen real estate for the code, and then to enable the console only when I want it. I know I can toggle it on, but it only seems to work for toggling it on, triggering the shortcut again won't hide it.

Answer 1

You could bind the Minimize Active View or Editor command in Preferences > General > Keys to any key combination you want, and if you do it the Console, it will minimize it. However when you do this, it will minimize all the views that share docking space with the Console. You can bring it up again with Alt+Shift+Q,C but this will show the Console as a floating view, it won't maximize the dock to it's original position. Hit Esc in this floating Console and it will go away.

If you can live with this, then it's probably OK.

Another way would be to maximize the Code view with Ctrl+M , in case you want to focus just on the code.

Answer 2

You can define different perspectives for that purpose.

See How To Add Perspectives In Eclipse

Answer 3

You can add or edit existing shortcuts in Preferences > General > Keys (or press Ctrl+3, type Keys and select)... type in console to filter out all the irrelevant shortcuts.

Here's an article with more details, and a video :)

http://eclipse.dzone.com/articles/how-manage-keyboard-shortcuts