2. Overview

ECB is a global minor-mode which offers a couple of ECB-windows for browsing your sources comfortable with the mouse and the keyboard. These "special" windows are also called tree-buffer in this manual. Every item in such a tree-buffer, i.e. every line, is also called a node of this tree-buffer. See 8.17 Displaying the trees of the ECB-windows with different styles to get an impression about the look&feel of these tree-buffers. There are currently three different types of ECB-windows/tree-buffers:

• ECB-Directories
• ECB-Sources
• ECB-Methods

In addition to these "special" ECB-windows you have always an edit-area where you can edit sour source-files. The edit-area can be divided into several edit-windows - as many as you need (see section 4.3 Working with the edit-window(s) of the edit-area). And at the bottom of the ECB-frame a durable compilation-window (also called compile-window) can be displayed (optional), where all the output of Emacs-compilation (compile, grep etc.) is shown (see section 4.4 Temp- and compile-buffers display in ECB).

The following "screenshot" illustrates the typical layout of the ECB-frame(11):

------------------------------------------------------------------
|              |                                                 |
|  Directories |                                                 |
|              |                                                 |
|--------------|                                                 |
|              |                                                 |
|  Sources     |                                                 |
|              |                                                 |
|--------------|                   Edit-area                     |
|              |   (can be splitted in several edit-windows)     |
|  Methods     |                                                 |
|              |                                                 |
|--------------|                                                 |
|              |                                                 |
|  History     |                                                 |
|              |                                                 |
------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                |
|                 Compilation-window (optional)                  |
|                                                                |
------------------------------------------------------------------

In the following subsections the "special" ECB-windows will be explained in detail.

2.1 ECB Directories-buffer

• Select directories (and - if enabled - source files) in the ECB-Directories buffer by clicking a mouse button on the directory name or by hitting RETURN when the cursor is placed on the item line, see 4. Usage of ECB.

  IMPORTANT: If you use the POWER-click (i.e. hold down the SHIFT-key while clicking with the primary mouse button (see section 4.1 Working with the mouse in the ECB-windows) or RETURN (see section 4.2 Working with the keyboard in the ECB-windows)) on a directory node in the this buffer then the directory-contents-cache for this directory will be refreshed and actualized.

• Directory names with a "[+]" symbol after (or before) them can be expanded/collapsed by clicking on the symbol, pressing the TAB key (see section 4.2 Working with the keyboard in the ECB-windows) when the cursor is placed on the package line or clicking a mouse button on the item, see 4.1 Working with the mouse in the ECB-windows.

• Right clicking on an item will open a popup menu where different operations on the item under the mouse cursor can be performed.

• Pressing F2 will open the ECB customization group (see section 5. Customizing ECB) in the edit window. F3 shows the online help in the edit-window. Pressing F4 in the ECB-directories buffer will offer adding a new source-path.

2.2 ECB Sources-buffer

• Source files can be selected by clicking with the primary mouse button (see section 4.1 Working with the mouse in the ECB-windows) or hitting RETURN (see section 4.2 Working with the keyboard in the ECB-windows) on the source row in the ECB-Sources or ECB-History windows. The buffer of the selected source-file will be displayed in an edit-window - which one depends on the setting in ecb-mouse-click-destination.

  IMPORTANT: If you use the POWER-click (i.e. hold down the SHIFT-key while clicking with the primary mouse button (see section 4.1 Working with the mouse in the ECB-windows) or RETURN (see section 4.2 Working with the keyboard in the ECB-windows)) on a source row in the ECB-Sources or ECB-History windows then the source will not be displayed in an edit-window but it will be scanned in the background and all its contents (e.g. methods and variables) are listed in the ECB Methods window (see section 2.3 ECB Methods-buffer. So you can get an overlook over the source without changing the buffer in the edit-window.

• Clicking on the source file with the secondary mouse button or C-RETURN (see section 4. Usage of ECB) will open the source file in another edit window - which one depends on the setting in ecb-mouse-click-destination.

• Right clicking on a source file (mouse-button 3) will open a popup menu where different operation on the item under the mouse cursor can be performed.

2.3 ECB Methods-buffer

The ECB-Methods buffer contains all parsed and recognized tags of the current source-buffer. It is called "Method-buffer" because ECB is mostly designed for browsing sourcecode files and for programming-languages these tags are often methods (and variables etc.) To simplify explanations we talk in the following only about methods and variables - but in general the method-buffer can contain any kind of tags (e.g. sections and subsections for texinfo buffers).

• When a method/variable is selected with the primary mouse button (see section 4.1 Working with the mouse in the ECB-windows) or RETURN (see section 4.2 Working with the keyboard in the ECB-windows) the buffer in the edit-window (which one depends on the setting in ecb-mouse-click-destination) will jump to the method/variable.

  IMPORTANT: If you use the POWER-click (i.e. hold down the SHIFT-key while clicking with the primary mouse button (see section 4.1 Working with the mouse in the ECB-windows) or RETURN (see section 4.2 Working with the keyboard in the ECB-windows)) on a node in this buffer then the edit-buffer will be narrowed to the selected tag (see also option ecb-tag-visit-post-actions). But this works only for sources parsed by semantic, not by imenu or etags!

• Clicking on a method/variable with the secondary mouse button or C-RETURN (see section 4. Usage of ECB) will jump to the method in another edit window - which one depends on the setting in ecb-mouse-click-destination.

• Right clicking on a method/variable will open a popup menu where different operation on the item under the mouse cursor can be performed.

This document was generated by XEmacs shared group account on December, 19 2009 using texi2html 1.65.