Is there a macro recorder for Eclipse?

Question

Is there a good Eclipse plugin for recording and playing back macros?

I've tried this one, but it didn't do me any good- it seemed like it wasn't ready for prime time.

I know about editor templates, but I'm looking for something that I can use to record my keystrokes and then apply multiple times against a wad of text.

This seems like a strange hole in an IDE. Am I missing some built-in facility for this?

Solution 1

I put something together over the last month or so that you may find useful. It has limitations since the Eclipse editor/commands weren't designed with macro support in mind, but I think it works reasonably well. I just posted Practical Macro at SourceForge a couple of days ago. It requires Eclipse 3.4.

Solution 2

Emacs+ Version 3.x adds keyboard macros (http://www.mulgasoft.com/emacsplus) to its feature set.

Solution 3

This seems like a strange hole in an IDE, am I missing some builtin facility for this?

This is a common problem. There are around four bugs opened in Eclipse tracker for this. Unfortunately you would probably see macros in Eclipse in v4.0 or later.

Solution 4

I've had success using AutoHotKey (Windows only, though).

Solution 5

There was a plug-in called Eclipse Monkey which allowed writing scripts that execute inside the IDE. It was terminated about a month ago due to lack of interest.

It is based on an older plug-in called Groovy Monkey. If you google it, you can still get it. The Aptana team has some more information on using it.

Note that this allows writing scripts, but not recording actions.

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Comments

[Templar]

Link appears to be broken. Correct link is: sourceforge.net/projects/practicalmacro

[meerkatlookout]

I'm on linux, but I've found some use from AutoKey, which is pretty similar.

[Sousou]

+1 I've used Emacs and Eclipse for projects and they have pros and cons. However, jEdit is the best of both worlds (built-in macros, Java core, nice UI, tons of plugins, good documentation). It's like the fundamentals Emacs reborn with modern technologies. I wish I knew about it earlier.

[sandos]

eclipse does have code templates, just saying...

[David Balažic]

Nope, no macros in v4.0

[gordon613]

Am using Eclipse Mars and it works great. In order to make it work, then the file PracticallyMacro_0.4.9.jar needs to be put in the eclipse/downloads/plugins directory (create the plugins directory if it doesn't exist). You can edit macros by going to Windows/Preferences/Practically Macro Options and you can run the macros via a new toolbar that is created.

[John Henckel]

Am using Neon with STS and still works great. I simply put the jar into the dropins folder. THANKS! this is a real time saver! (well, maybe it doesn't save time, but it makes my job more fun). ;-)

[Anver Sadhat]

We have 'Eclipse Macro' >> wiki.eclipse.org/E4/Macros

[Warren Rumak]

Link is broken; do you have an updated location?