Working with cheat sheets
Eclipse provides cheat sheets to guide you through some of its
application development processes. Each cheat sheet is designed to help you
complete some task, and it lists the sequence of steps required to help you
achieve that goal. As you progress from one step to the next, the cheat sheet
will automatically launch the required tools for you. If there is a manual step
in the process, the step will tell you to perform the task and click a button
in the cheat sheet to move on to the next step. Also, relevant help information
to guide you through a task is retrieved in a single click so that lengthy documentation
searches will no longer be required.
A
composite cheat sheet
is another kind of cheat sheet that provides guidance for larger tasks or a group of related tasks.
Launching a cheat sheet
To launch a cheat sheet from the Workbench
- Select
Help > Cheat Sheets
from the menu bar.
If this command is not in the menu, it can be added from Window >
Customize Perspective > Commands, and check Cheat Sheets.
- The available cheat sheets are listed, select one and click OK.
Alternatively if you know the location of a cheat sheet content file on your
file system or on the web you can enter its path.
The cheat sheet opens as a view. At any time, only one cheat sheet is open
and active. When you launch a cheat sheet, any opened cheat sheet is closed
before the new one is opened. The completion status of closed cheat sheet is
saved.
The cheat sheet has a toolbar at the top right edge. These icons appear in
the toolbar:
-
Collapses
all the expanded steps except the current step or expands steps to the last
expanded state. Click to toggle between these two states.
-
Allows
you to select and open another cheat sheet. The completion status of the active
cheat sheet is saved. Then, the active cheat sheet is closed and the selected
cheat sheet is opened.
-
Hides
the cheat sheet.
-
Saves
the completion status of the active cheat sheet and closes it.
Note that some cheat sheets can also be launched from the welcome page by
first selecting Tutorials and then selecting one of the tutorials.
Starting the cheat sheet
Each cheat sheet has a list of steps and it always begins with an Introduction
step. When you launch a fresh cheat sheet, the Introduction step is expanded
so that you can read a brief description of the cheat sheet. To start working
with the cheat sheet, click Click to Begin
in that step. The next step is expanded and highlighted. You should
also see one or more actions buttons, such as Click to Perform
in the highlighted step. You can now begin working through the tasks using the
cheat sheet. At any time, the only highlighted step in the cheat sheet is the
current step.
Restarting the cheat sheet
Any time after starting a cheat sheet, you can restart from the first step
by clicking Click to Restart
in the Introduction step. If you have already created some artifacts, you will
have to manually clean up the workspace before restarting the cheat sheet.
Progressing through the steps
In the current step, when you click Click to Perform
,
a tool (which can be a wizard), will be launched and you will be required to
work with that tool. When you finish working with that tool, the next step is
automatically highlighted and it becomes the current step. When the current
step is a manual task, you will need to perform the work and click Click
to Complete
to move to the next step. A check mark
appears in the left margin of each completed step.
Getting help information for tasks
To get step-by-step instructions for that step, click the help link
in the step before you click Click to Perform
,
and the step-by-step instructions on how to work with that tool will be displayed
in the Help window.
Additional help for entry fields in the tool or wizard may be available by
focusing on the field (use the Tab key to position to that
entry) and pressing F1.
Skipping a step
If a current step has a Click to Skip option
,
then it is an optional step. You must click Click to Skip
to skip the current step, when you do, the step will have the skip mark
in the left margin. If the task does not present Click to Skip,
you must perform that step and you cannot skip it.
Redoing a step
You can redo any step that you may have completed or skipped in the current
cheat sheet. To redo the step, expand the step by clicking its expand
icon
and then clicking Click to Redo
.
After redoing a step, the cheat sheet will continue from the redo step.
Closing the cheat sheet
When you finish the last step in a cheat sheet, it automatically restarts.
You can also close the active cheat sheet by clicking the close icon
in the cheat sheet's toolbar. The active cheat sheet saves its completion status
when it is closed so that you can continue where you left off at a later time.
Working with composite cheat sheets