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OVERVIEW:: Some programmers prefer not to use the built-in auto-complete feature for a variety or reasons. Disabling this feature in Eclipse, seems consistent across the different editors, but is a fairly non-intuitive process: ACTUAL RESULTS:: In the Java Editor: NOTE: Like I mentioned, the limited research I did on other language editors for Eclipse all seemed to be similar, so I'll just use Java as an example. 1) Go to Menu-bar -> Window -> Preferences -> Java -> Editor -> Content Assist NOTE: I had to google this to find out what the auto-complete feature was called in Eclipse, otherwise I was left to root around the menu system until I found something that roughly matched the description of what I was looking for. Going through the Eclipse help system gave me a good idea where I needed to go, but didn't tell me explicitly that part of Content Assist is where the Auto Complete feature of Eclipse is located. 2) Uncheck all of the "Insert <something> Automatically" checkboxes. 3) Uncheck Auto-Activation NOTE: The description of what exactly auto-activation does, in this context, doesn't say exactly what happens on activation. I assumed at first, incorrectly, it was referring to automatically activating the code suggestion pop-up window. NOTE: Even after these steps, some characters are STILL automatically inserted. A specific example: hitting enter inside of a block comment ("/*") automatically added the correct indent (which is fine, I use auto-indent) and also " * " which counts as extra characters that should only be added if I want them. SIDE NOTE: In case it matters, I had the formatter turned off during this entire process. EXPECTED RESULTS:: What I would like to have: 1) A simple checkbox, in an obvious place, that entirely enables or disables automatically inserted characters, other than the bare bones auto-indent (the auto-complete feature). It would also be nice to have: 2) Better, or just more commonly used, descriptions or names of the menu items so this feature is easier to find and understand.
Why would you want to disable those in the first place?
Personally, I find that the Content Assist feature doesn't always insert something useful; And automatically inserting non-useful pieces of code is just annoying. For other examples of why you may want to disable the feature: (These come from a quick google of how to disable auto-complete in Eclipse.) http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4906137/disable-content-assist-in-eclipse http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1417239/disable-eclipse-auto-completion https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111120042934AAFPl8w (In reply to Dani Megert from comment #1) > Why would you want to disable those in the first place?
(In reply to Duncan McPherson from comment #2) > Personally, I find that the Content Assist feature doesn't always insert > something useful; And automatically inserting non-useful pieces of code is > just annoying. It would be good to have bugs for those.
