Special Inline Editing Is Tricky

Special Inline Editing Is Tricky

I like the new feature in Eclipse 3.3 where you can perform a rename refactoring directly in the editor window. It seems like the Eclipse folks are experimenting with a new level of user-interface quality. Yay them.

There's still one tweak I'd like to see them make with this IDE. The Home and End keys still operate in their typical way. That is pressing Home navigates to the start of the line and pressing End navigates to the end of the line. Given that we're working within the context of a rename refactoring, I'd love to see Home and End have a different role, navigating to the start and end of the bound box. If you don't want that feature, use Home+Home or End+End to break the special use of Home and End.

I'm realizing this is a complicated problem, and it's easy to get an IDE feature like this very wrong. In the meantime, I'll log my enhancement request and give them something to think about.