Eclipse for ABAP Development can be overwhelming for developers who are working for first time on ADT IDE. I am trying to empower you here with most frequently and essentially used shortcuts and tips. These should help you to feel onboarded.
Just be known that all functionalities in classical SAP GUI are present in Eclipse also. In addition, Eclipse provides different and even many smarter ways to accomplish certain development, formatting, documentation and collaboration tasks which were never offered by SAP GUI. More information is HERE.
If you feel that you are not able to do your development tasks properly at Eclipse, I suggest to still stick with it and spend some time on this IDE because it may normally take some time to get a hang of it. Rest assured that once you are acquainted with it, you may not feel like going back to GUI Editor. Above all, new ABAP features like CDS, AMDP and Restful ABAP can be developed exclusively on Eclipse.
These tips and tricks should help you to kick-start with Eclipse for ABAP Development:
- Run an application using Alt + F8 and no need to open SAP GUI
- Use Ctrl + Shift + A to select and open an Object and no need to go to Project explorer or SAP GUI
- For Version comparison of code, Use Right click on code > Compare with
- Project properties (Right click on Project > Properties) and Eclipse global properties (Menu > Window > Properties) has differences in visibility of settings
- There are a lot of differences between 7.4 and 7.5 versions, so don’t get confused if some functionalities are missing in Eclipse if they are not meant for 7.4
- SAP GUI can be used inside Eclipse for ABAP Development if there is no native Perspective/Editor present in Eclipse. This can be opened using Alt + F8(preferred) or Ctrl + 6
- All shortcuts available in Eclipse for ABAP Development can be checked using Ctrl + Shift + L
- If you mess up with Editor layout (e.g. Close/minimize/maximize Editor and views) and don’t know how to retrieve old layout, use Menu > Windows > Perspective > Reset Perspective
- Use Menu > Help > Check for updates for update Eclipse regularly. This provides latest and greatest features of Eclipse directly to developer
- Quick Searching tip with Shift + Ctrl + A:
If only Search string is provided, many results may come.
Providing Object type along with Search String is a good idea as it further filters the search:
