General > Editors >
Text Editors > Annotations preference page.Textual editors in Eclipse can be configured to better fit the needs of people using Accessible Technology such as screen readers and magnifiers. This document describes the relevant options.
Some editors offer code folding by default which can be confusing. Disabling this feature can help to better read the code. Search for "folding" in the Preferences dialog to find related options.
You can navigate to the next annotation by pressing Ctrl+. and to the previous one by pressing
Ctrl+,. Out of the box not all available annotation types are included in that navigation, for example,
breakpoints are not part of it. Breakpoints and other annotation types can either be enabled via the Next
Annotation toolbar button drop-down menu or by checking Include in next/previous navigation on the
General > Editors >
Text Editors > Annotations preference page.
Navigating to an annotation moves the text caret to the annotated line, and displays the annotation text in the status line. The next section explains how to read the status line under Windows.
Some annotation types, for example warnings and errors, can be accessed by pressing F2 after having navigated to one of them or setting the caret inside the annotation.
Reading the status line with JAWSJAWS desktop users press Insert+PageDown to read the Eclipse status line and JAWS laptop users press Caps Lock+PageDown.
You can get the current line number by pressing Ctrl+L or via Navigate > Go To Line....
F2 can be used to show and give focus to most hovers and pop-up windows in textual editors, like content
assist proposals, content assist argument proposals, Quick Assists, Quick Fixes, errors and warnings. This allows the
screen reader to read its contents. The key sequence for the Show Tooltip Description command can be changed
on the
General >
Keys preference page.
Like normal hovers can be shown by pressing F2, the quick diff and revision hovers that appear when
hovering over the quick diff ruler on the left can also be shown by pressing a key sequence. However, out of the box
no key sequence is defined for that. Go to the
General >
Keys preference page to assign a key sequence to the Show Quick Diff Ruler Tooltip command.
Like normal hovers can be shown by pressing F2, the annotation hover that appears when hovering over the
vertical ruler on the left can also be shown by pressing a key sequence. However, out of the box no key sequence is
defined for that. Go to the
General >
Keys preference page to assign a key sequence to the Show Ruler Annotation Tooltip command.
In order to prevent content assist to open automatically and hence maybe unexpectedly, it is recommended to disable auto activation. In the SDK the options below are available. Other editors might offer similar preferences.
Ant > Editor >
Content Assist preference page Java > Editor >
Content Assist preference pageIn order to get correct results when letting the screen reader read words in the Java editor it is recommended to
disable Smart caret positioning in Java names on the
Java > Editor
preference page.
Some screen readers do not read punctuation by default, however it is useful to hear punctuation when reading code. When using a Java Editor with a screen reader, you can do the following:
JAWS reads most punctuation out of the box, however it does not say commas. To change this:
VoiceOver reads most punctuation out of the box, however it does not say commas. To change this: