I've been a fan of Eclipse for a long time now, even before FDT and Flash Builder were built around it. The use of workspaces, once you get your head around them, is powerful for focusing your head on the work at hand, keeping all associated projects within the one space.

However there are times when I wish I was able to have multiple workspaces open. And too the rescue comes the command line.

[Path/To/Eclipse]/eclipse -data [Your/Workspace/Dir] &

I've wrapped this up into a little bash script to start eclipse from either the current directory or using the specified directory as the workspace:

#!/bin/sh
if [ -n "$1" ]; then
	echo "Starting eclipse: WORKSPACE: " $1
	/Applications/eclipse/eclipse  -data $1 &
else
	echo "Starting eclipse: WORKSPACE: " `pwd`
	/Applications/eclipse/eclipse  -data `pwd` &
fi

On OSX it's better to use the open command, like:

#!/bin/sh
if [ -n "$1" ]; then
	echo "Starting eclipse: WORKSPACE: " $1
	open -n /Applications/eclipse/Eclipse.app --args  -data $1
else
	echo "Starting eclipse: WORKSPACE: " `pwd`
	open -n /Applications/eclipse/Eclipse.app --args  -data `pwd`
fi

This will work equally as well with the Flash Builder application, just replace the Eclipse.app with the path to Flash Builder.

Happy workspacing!

Just assembling a quick list of some of the shortcuts I use everyday in Eclipse. Let me know if you have any other favourites!

• Code hinting: Ctrl + Space
• Change view: Cmd + 3
• Open any file quickly without browsing for it in the Package Explorer: Cmd + Shift + R
• Open a type (e.g.: a class, an interface) without clicking through interminable list of packages: Cmd + Shift + T
• Go directly to a member (method, variable) of a huge class file, especially when a lot of methods are named similarly: Cmd + O
• Go to line number N in the source file: Cmd + L, enter line number
• Go to other open editors: Cmd + E
• Go to a type declaration: F3 or Cmd + click on declaration

Note: Cmd == Ctrl on Windows/Linux

This one has been frustrating me for a while, I just wanted to open an actionscript project that we have in our svn into my workspace.

Seemed like a simple concept, but I only recently discovered how to do it:

• Go to File > Import
• Select General > Existing Projects into Workspace
• Find your directory with your .project file and select finish

Seems so simple now.