Eclipse Rich Client Platform: Designing, Coding, and Packaging Java™ Applications

Chapter 12. Adding Key Bindings

All applications have actions that are more often initiated from the keyboard than from a toolbar or menu. Power-users especially expect quick access to common actions using the keyboard. The Workbench includes an extremely flexible framework to manage actions and key bindings. This includes having locale- or function-grouped key binding configurations and key bindings that apply to only certain parts of the application.

You can add key bindings for all Hyperbola actions since there aren’t that many. In general, however, you have to carefully select the actions to bind to key sequences. One rule of thumb comes from the observation that toolbars also contain frequently used actions. As such, consider providing key ...