ECB (Emacs Code Browser) is a source code browser for Emacs. It is a global minor-mode which displays a couple of windows that can be used to browse directories, files and methods. It supports method parsing for Java, C, C++, Elisp and some more.

NOTE: Experienced ECB users find a complete alphabetical list of all commands and user-options in Interactive ECB commands and Customizable options.

The latest version of ECB can always be found at the URL http://home.swipnet.se/mayhem/ecb.html.

To send bug reports, or participate in discussions about ECB, use the mailing list ecb-list@lists.sourceforge.net via the URL http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ecb-list.

Installation and first steps of ECB
***********************************

This chapter describes how to install ECB and what are the first steps after activation of ECB

Installation of ECB
===================

 1. Unpack the ECB archive.

 2. Read the file README in the ECB-directory and install the required semantic- and eieio-version.

     Note: ECB maybe requires a newer version of these libraries than shipped with Emacs or XEmacs. You have to install exactly a version ECB requires and also to make sure that the correct version is loaded into (X)Emacs!

     But ECB checks auto. during start-time if the correct versions of semantic and eieio are installed and gives you proper feedback. See Download required packages.

 3. Add the new ECB-directory to your load-path variable.

     You MUST add the ECB-install-directory to the load-path either by changing the load-path variable directly in your .emacs or site-lisp/site-start.el or by working with a file subdirs.el.

     ATTENTION: ECB is NOT properly installed if it's directory is not added to load-path and for example just loaded by

          (load-file "/path/to/ecb/ecb.el")

     Do not do this!

 4. Add to your .emacs or site-lisp/site-start.el the line:

          (require 'ecb)

 5. Restart Emacs.

ECB is now ready for use and can be activated by calling M-x ecb-activate. Now you can either starting using ECB or you can do these optional installation steps:

 6. Call ecb-byte-compile

     This byte compiles ECB. You can safely ignore all messages. (You can also bytecompile ECB from the command-line either by using the Makefile or by using the batch-file make.bat. Just read the comments in that file you choose.)

 7. Install the supplied ecb.info

     The ECB distribution contains a file ecb.info which is the online-help of ECB in Info-format. You can install this online help so it's available in the Top-directory of Info. There are two ways to do this:

       - Use ``install-info'' (recommended):

           1. Copy the file ecb.info into the info-directory of Emacs

           2. Install it with the command ``install-info'' (if available on your system) in the dir-file.

          The supplied Makefile offers a target install-help which does both of these steps. You have just to call make install-help with the correct EMACSINFOPATH set (see the comment in Makefile). Here is an example:

               make EMACSINFOPATH=/path/to/emacs/info install-help

       - Manual Installation:

          Copy the file ecb.info into the info-directory of Emacs and modify the file dir manually.

     But it doesn't matter if you do not execute this step (7.) because the online help of ECB is always available though, see ecb-show-help (see Interactive ECB commands).

First steps after activating ECB first time
===========================================

This section of the ECB online-help is displayed automatically by ECB after activating ECB first time and describes what are the first basic steps:

 1. Configure where ECB can find your sources:

     Call M-x customize-option RET ecb-source-path RET (This means first hitting the keys M (Meta- or Alt-key) and x simultaniously, inserting ``customize-option'' in the minibuffer, hitting RETURN, inserting ``ecb-source-path'' in the minibuffer and finally hitting RETURN again). This lets you customize the option ecb-source-path with the customize-feature of Emacs. This opens a customize-buffer where you can insert all the directories where ECB can find your source-files. Save your changes with the button ``Save for future sessions'' and then throw away this customize-buffer either by killing it with M-x kill-buffer or clicking at the button ``Finish''.

 2. Read the online-help of ECB:

     The online-help of ECB is available via

       - calling M-x ecb-show-help,

       - pressing C-c . o or

       - using the menu ``ECB''.

     (The section you are currently reading is part of the online-help of ECB)

 3. Start working with ECB.

Overview
********

ECB is a global minor-mode which offers a few 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. 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 one or two edit-windows (see The edit-window) in the ECB-frame and at the bottom a compilation-window (optional), where all the output of Emacs-compilation (compile, grep etc.) is shown (see Temp- and compile-buffers).

The following ``ascii-screenshot'' illustrates the typical layout of the ECB-frame (This is only one example of the layouts ECB offers, see Changing the ECB-layout):

     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     |              |                                                 |
     |  Directories |                                                 |
     |              |                                                 |
     |--------------|                                                 |
     |              |                                                 |
     |  Sources     |                                                 |
     |              |                                                 |
     |--------------|                 Edit-window(s)                  |
     |              |        (can be splitted in two windows)         |
     |  Methods     |                                                 |
     |              |                                                 |
     |--------------|                                                 |
     |              |                                                 |
     |  History     |                                                 |
     |              |                                                 |
     ------------------------------------------------------------------
     |                                                                |
     |                 Compilation-window (optional)                  |
     |                                                                |
     ------------------------------------------------------------------

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

ECB Directories
===============

  * 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 Usage of ECB.

  * Directory names with a ``[+]'' symbol after (or before) them can be expanded/collapsed by clicking on the symbol, pressing the TAB key when the cursor is placed on the package line or clicking a mouse button on the item, see Usage of ECB.

  * 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 Customizing) 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.

ECB Sources
===========

  * Source files can be selected by clicking a mouse button (see Using the mouse) or hitting RETURN (see Using the keyboard) on the source row in the ECB-Sources or ECB- History windows.

     IMPORTANT: If you hold down the SHIFT-key while clicking with the primary mouse button (see Using the mouse) or RETURN (see Using the keyboard) on a source row in the ECB-Sources or ECB-History windows then the source will not be displayed in the 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 ECB Methods. 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 Usage of ECB) will open the source file in the other edit window.

  * Right clicking on a source file will open a popup menu where different operation on the item under the mouse cursor can be performed.

ECB Methods
===========

  * The ECB-Methods buffer contains the methods (and variables, if you want) in the selected source file. When a method/variable is selected with the primary mouse button  or RETURN (see Usage of ECB) the edit buffer will jump to the method/variable.

  * Clicking on a method/variable with the secondary mouse button or C-RETURN (see Usage of ECB) will jump to the method in the other edit window.

Activation and Deactivation
***************************

This chapter describes all aspects of activating and deactivating ECB.

Standard activation and deactivation
====================================

Call M-x ecb-activate and M-x ecb-deactivate to activate or deactivate ECB. If you want ECB started in a new frame see the option ecb-new-ecb-frame (default is nil). ecb-activate always raises and selects the ECB-frame even if ECB is already started.

Because ECB is a global minor-mode it can also be (de)activated/toggled by M-x ecb-minor-mode.

Automatic activation and deactivation
=====================================

There are three options for auto. (de)activation ECB after Emacs-start and also major-mode based.

ecb-auto-activate
     This option is for auto. activating ECB after Emacs-startup. Set this to not nil and ECB will automaticaly be started after Emacs comes up.

ecb-major-modes-activate
ecb-major-modes-deactivate
     These option give you the possibility to activate (rsp. deactivate) ECB on a major-mode basis, means you can define for which major-modes ECB should be activated and for which modes it should activated.

     If activating or deactivating is too strong you can also customize ECB with these two option only hiding/showing it's ECB-windows (tree-buffers) on a major-mode basis. At last this is nothing more than auto. calling ecb-toggle-ecb-windows (see Interactive ECB commands depending which major-mode is active.

Usage of ECB
************

This chapter describes in a detailed manner all aspects of using the Emacs Code Browser.

Working with the mouse in the ECB-windows
=========================================

Normally you get best usage if you use ECB with a mouse. ECB distinguishes between a primary and a secondary mouse-button:

A click with the primary button causes the main effect in each ECB-buffer:

  - ECB Directories: Expanding/collapsing nodes and displaying files in the ECB-Sources buffer.

  - ECB sources/history: Opening the file in that edit-window specified by the option ecb-primary-mouse-jump-destination.

  - ECB Methods: Jumping to the method in that edit-window specified by the option ecb-primary-mouse-jump-destination.

Per default the complete node-name of an item in a tree-buffer is displayed in the echo-area if the mouse moves over it, regardless if the related window is the active one or not. You can get the same effect if you click with the primary mouse-button onto a node while SHIFT is held. In general: Via ecb-show-node-info-in-minibuffer you can specify in a detailled manner for every ECB tree-buffer when and which node-info should be displayed in the minibuffer.

IMPORTANT: Doing this SHIFT-click in the ECB-Sources or ECB-History windows does not only show the node in the echo-area but it also opens the clicked source only in the background and shows all its methods/variables in ECB-Methods; the buffer of the edit-window is not changed! This is very useful to get only an overlook for a certain source.

The secondary mouse-button is for opening (jumping to) the file in the other window (see the documentation ecb-primary-mouse-jump-destination).

With the option ecb-primary-secondary-mouse-buttons the following combinations of primary and secondary mouse-buttons are possible:

  - primary: mouse-2, secondary: C-mouse-2 (means mouse-2 while CTRL-key is pressed.). This is the default.

  - primary: mouse-1, secondary: C-mouse-1

  - primary: mouse-1, secondary: mouse-2

If you change this during ECB is activated you must deactivate and activate ECB again to take effect

In each ECB-buffer mouse-3 (= right button) opens a special context popup-menu for the clicked item where you can choose several senseful actions.

Working with the keyboard in the ECB-windows
============================================

ECB offers the ecb-mode-map which binds the most important functions of ECB to keys so you can easily use ECB without a mouse.

IMPORTANT: Do not modify ecb-mode-map directly! The option ecb-key-map defines all ECB keybindings, including a common prefixkey (This is by default C-c .). If there are conflicts with other minor-modes or packages you can define very easy another prefix. Please read carefully the description of ecb-key-map (see ecb-general).!

Navigation
----------

In the ECB-buffers RETURN and TAB are the most important keys:

  * RETURN does the same as the primary button and C-RETURN does the same as the secondary button. The terms primary and secondary are explained in Using the mouse. S-RETURN is the same as the SHIFT-click (see ECB Sources). See also the option ecb-tree-RET-selects-edit-window and the function ecb-toggle-RET-selects-edit-window which is bound to C-t in each tree-buffer of ECB!

  * TAB always expands or collapses expandable nodes.

The RETURN and TAB keys can not be (re)defined with ecb-key-map!

If you set ecb-tree-navigation-by-arrow to not nil then the left- and right-arrow keys work in the ECB tree-window in the following smart way if onto an expandable node:

  * Left-arrow: If node is expanded then it will be collapsed otherwise point jumps to the next ``higher'' node in the hierarchical tree (higher means the next higher level or - if no higher level available - the next higher node on the same level).

  * Right-arrow: If node is not expanded then it will be expanded.

Onto a not expandable node the horizontal arrow-keys go one character in the senseful correct direction.

Incremental search for a node in current tree-buffer
----------------------------------------------------

Each displayable key (e.g. all keys normally bound to self-insert-command) is appended to the current seach-pattern. The tree-buffer tries to jump to the first node which matching the current search-pattern either as substring or as prefix (see below). If no match is found then nothing is done. There are some special keys:

  * backspace and delete: Delete the last character from the search-pattern.

  * home: Delete the complete search-pattern

  * end: Expand either to a complete node if current search-pattern is already unique or expands to the greates common substring or prefix of the nodes. If there are at least two nodes with the same greatest common-prefix than every hit of end jumps to the next node with this common prefix.

For better overlooking the current search-pattern is shown in the echo area. After selecting a node with RET the search-pattern is cleared out. With ecb-tree-incremental-search you can specify if the current search-pattern must be a real prefix of the node (default) or if any substring is matched.

For faster and easier finding the right node in a ecb-window thi incremental search ignores the following non interesting stuff:

  - any leading spaces

  - expand/collapse-buttons: [+] resp. [-]

  - protection-signs (+, -, #) in the method-window if uml-notation is used

  - variables types or returntypes in front of variable- or method-names.

  - const specifier for variables

This means: Just type in the prefix (resp. a substring) of a class-, variable-, method-, directory- or filename and ECB will bring you as fast as possible to the node you want. Incremental node-search uses the value of case-fold-search.

Tip: The ecb-minor-mode offers you in the ecb-mode-map (customizable via ecb-key-map) some keys for selecting every window of the ecb-frame. This makes window-selection a child´s play. For example you can jump into the method-window by hitting C-c . m.

Working with the edit-window
============================

ECB offers you all what you need to work with the edit-window as if the edit-window would be the only window of the ECB-frame.

ECB offers you to advice the following functions so they work best with ECB:

  - other-window

  - delete-window

  - delete-other-windows

  - split-window-horizontally

  - split-window-vertically

  - switch-to-buffer

  - switch-to-buffer-other-window

  - other-window-for-scrolling

The behavior of the adviced functions is:

  * All these adviced functions behaves exactly like their corresponding original functons but they always act as if the edit-window(s) of ECB would be the only window(s) of the ECB-frame. So the edit-window(s) of ECB seems to be a normal Emacs-frame to the user.

  * If called in a not edit-window of ECB all these function jumps first to the (first) edit-window, so you can never destroy the ECB-window layout unintentionally.

  * If called in another frame than the ECB-frame these functions behave exactly like the not adviced original versions!

ATTENTION: If you want to work within the edit-window with splitting and unsplitting the edit-window(s) it is highly recommended to use the adviced-functions of ECB instead of the original Emacs-functions (see above). Per default ECB does advice all of the functions mentioned above but with the option ecb-advice-window-functions you can customizes which functions should be adviced by ECB. Please read carefully the documentation of this option!

Another interesting option in the context of the edit-window and these adviced functions is ecb-layout-always-operate-in-edit-window!

Temp- and compile-buffers display in ECB
========================================

If you call any help in Emacs, e.g. by calling describe-function, or if you do a completion in the minibuffer, then Emacs displays the result-buffer in another window. This behavior you have also in ECB. If the edit-window is already splitted then the temp-buffer is displayed in the ``other'' edit-window otherwise the edit-window will be splitted first. The variables temp-buffer-max-height and temp-buffer-resize-mode work also correctly with ECB.

Same for all compilation output-buffers (e.g. after a compile or grep) and the variable compilation-window-height.

This is default behavior of ECB. But there is also another way to display such buffers:

  * With the option ecb-compile-window-height you can define if the ECB layout should contain per default a compilation-window at the bottom (and if yes the height of it). If yes ECB displays all output of compilation-mode (compile, grep etc.) in this special window. Same for displaying help-buffers or similar stuff.

  * With the option ecb-compile-window-temporally-enlarge you can allow Emacs to enlarge temporally the ECB-compile-window in some situations. Please read the comment of this option. See also the description of the function ecb-toggle-enlarged-compilation-window.

  * With the option ecb-layout-switch-to-compilation-window you can modify the switch-to-buffer...-functions to work best if your layout contains a compilation-window. See the docstring of this option.

  * With the command ecb-cycle-through-compilation-buffers (see Interactive ECB commands) you can cycle through all current open compilation-buffers in the sense of ecb-compilation-buffer-p very fast.

But because ECB works best without such a durable compilation-window you should read the documentation of these two options carefully!

Using and customizing the ECB-Methods buffer
============================================

This chapter describes how to use and customize the Methods-buffer of ECB.

Customizing the display of the Methods-buffer
---------------------------------------------

The ECB-Methods buffer is probably the most important browsing window offered by ECB. It displays all semantic informations of the current buffer in the edit-window.

ECB gets all informations displayed in this Methods-buffer from the semantic-library. This library parses auto. the current source-buffer in the edit-window of ECB and returns all information in form of tokens to ECB which displays them in a browsable form in its Method-buffer. See ECB Methods for information how to use the Methods-buffer.

There are several options to customize which tokens ECB should display in general, if the tokens should be collapsed or expanded, how to fontify them (i.e. syntax-highlighting) and something more.

ecb-show-tokens
     Which semantic-tokens (e.g. types, methods, variables etc.) should be displayed and should they be collapsed, flattened or expanded. Sorting is also possible.

ecb-font-lock-tokens
ecb-type-token-display
     How to fontify the tokens in the Method-buffer

ecb-token-display-function
     ECB and semantic offer several predefined functions for displaying the tokens. Here you can customize, what informations tokens should contain (only the method-name or the whole signature or something else) and what notation should be used, e.g. UML or not.

These are the most important options for this topic but it is recommended to have a look into the customize-group ecb-methods (see ecb-methods) and check all the options offered there!

Rebuilding the Methods-buffer
-----------------------------

In almost all cases there is NO need to manually rebuild the method-buffer, because it is always done automatically if necessary. But nevertheless there exist a few rare scenarios where a complete manual rebuild can be necessary. Here is one example:

Depending on the semantic-version: If an elisp-file is parsed which contains a defun X in the middle where the closing ) is missing, then semantic parses only until this defun X is reached and you will get an incomplete ECB-method buffer. In such a case you must complete the defun X and then completely reparse the elisp-file and rebuild the ECB method buffer!

A complete manually rebuild is done by ecb-rebuild-methods-buffer.

Changing, customizing and redrawing the ECB-layout
==================================================

The term ECB-layout means in which windows the ECB-frame is divided. This chapter describes all aspects concerning this layout, especially changing, customizing and redrawing it.

Changing and customizing the ECB-layout
---------------------------------------

ECB offers several predefined layouts with different sets and also different locations of ECB-windows. To see which layouts are available and choose an appropriate one just customize the option ecb-layout-nr. The docstring of this option explains how to see the different available layouts.

If you want to switch fast between some layouts see the option ecb-toggle-layout-sequence and the command ecb-toggle-layout (see Simulating speedbar)

In addition to the general layout you can specify if the layout should contain a durable compilation-window at the bottom of the frame, see ecb-compile-window-height (see Temp- and compile-buffers).

Maybe you want also change the look&feel of the tree-buffers. Then you can change the location of the collapse- and expand-symbols and the indendation of sub-nodes in a tree. See ecb-tree-indent and ecb-tree-expand-symbol-before.

Redrawing the ECB-layout
------------------------

If you have unintenionally destroyed the ECB-layout, you can always restore the layout with calling ecb-redraw-layout. This is even true, if you get messages like ``wrong-type-argument window-live-p #<window 222>''.

If the variable ecb-redraw-layout-quickly is not nil then the redraw is done by the ecb-redraw-layout-quickly function, otherwise by ecb-redraw-layout-full. But it's strongly recommended to use the quick redraw only if you have really slow machines where a full redraw takes several seconds because the quick redraw is not really safe and may have some drawbacks! On normal machines the full redraw should be done in << 1s!

Hiding/Showing the ECB windows
==============================

With ecb-toggle-ecb-windows you can hide/show all the ECB windows without changing the activation state of ECB and also without deactivating the advices for delete-other-windows and/or delete-window. This is most useful if you use a layout like nr.10 (see Tips and tricks) or if you want to have maximum space for editing and you don't need the browsing windows all the time.

Back- and forward navigation like a browser
===========================================

With ECB you can ``browse'' in your source-files like with a web-browser. This means ECB stores the current buffer- and window-position relative to the current token (e.g. a method, a variable or any other semantic token) in the edit-window after

  - selecting a token in the ECB-methods buffer or

  - selecting a source-file in the ECB-sources/history-buffer.

ECB offers two commands ecb-nav-goto-next (C-c . n) and ecb-nav-goto-previous (C-c . p) to go forward and backward within this navigation historylist. These commands are also available via the menu ``ECB --> Navigate''.

Aside normal ``location-browsing'' this is usefull for example in a scenario where ecb-token-jump-narrow is activated:

 1. You edit a function

 2. Goto another function above the current in the same file

 3. Add a few lines

 4. Call ecb-nav-goto-previous

     Now you will edit at the same place in the function.

Synchronization of the ECB-windows
==================================

Per default ECB synchronizes automatically the contents of the ECB-windows/tree-buffers with the current active edit-window (rsp. the current buffer of the edit window):

  * ECB-directories:

     This windows is synchronized to display the directory where the source-file which is displayed in the edit-window is located. If the source-path (i.e. an element of the option ecb-source-path) containing this directory is not expanded it will be auto. expanded according to the value of the option ecb-auto-expand-directory-tree (see ecb-directories).

  * ECB-sources:

     The ECB-sources-buffer contains after synchronizing all the sources of the directory of the ``current'' source-file displayed in the edit-window. The entry of the ``current'' source-file is highlighted.

  * ECB-methods:

     Contains after synchronizing all the tokens of the buffer in the edit-window, i.e. all methods, variables etc... depending of the major-mode.

  * ECB-history:

     Highlights the entry of the buffer displayed in the edit-window if this buffer is a source-file.

This feature can be customized with the option ecb-window-sync:

If active then the synchronization takes place always a buffer changes in the edit window, if deactivated then never. But you can also set this option to a list of major-modes and then the sync. will only be done if the major-mode of the current buffer belongs NOT to this list.

But in every case the synchronization takes only place if the major-mode of the current-buffer in the edit-window has a relation to files or directories. Examples for the former one are all programming-language-modes like c++-mode or java-mode, Info-mode too, an example for the latter one is dired-mode. For all major-modes related to non-file/directory-buffers like help-mode, customize-mode and others never a synchronization will be done!

It's recommended to exclude at least Info-mode because it makes no sense to synchronize the ECB-windows after calling the Info help. Per default also dired-mode is excluded but it can also making sense to synchronize the ECB-directories/sources windows with the current directory of the dired-buffer in the edit-window.

NOTE: With the command ecb-current-buffer-sync you can do a manually synchronization if the automatic one is switched off or if you just want to do this!

Interactive ECB commands
========================

ECB offers the a lot of interactive commands. Some of these commands prompt the user in the minibuffer if called with a prefix argument.

Example: If ecb-clear-history is called with a prefix argument then you will be prompted in the minibuffer with:

     Clear from history: [all, not-existing-buffers, existing-buffers]

You can choose one of the options enclosed in brackets with TAB-completion; hitting RET direct after the prompt chooses auto. the first offered option (in the example above ``all'').

These are the interactive commands of ECB (listed in alphabetical order):

 -- Command: ecb-activate
     Activates the ECB and creates all the buffers and draws the ECB-screen with the actually choosen layout (see ecb-layout-nr). This function raises always the ECB-frame if called from another frame. This is the same as calling ecb-minor-mode with a positive argument.

 -- Command: ecb-add-all-buffers-to-history
     Add all current file-buffers to the history-buffer of ECB.

 -- Command: ecb-clear-history &optional clearall
     Clears the ECB history-buffer. If CLEARALL is nil then the behavior is defined in the option ecb-clear-history-behavior otherwise the user is prompted what buffers should be cleared from the history-buffer. For further explanation see ecb-clear-history-behavior.

 -- Command: ecb-current-buffer-sync &optional force
     Synchronizes the ECB buffers with the current buffer. Unless FORCE is non-nil then do this only if current-buffer differs from the source displayed in the ECB tree-buffers.

 -- Command: ecb-cycle-through-compilation-buffers &optional choose-buffer
     Cycle through all compilation buffers currently open and display them within the compilation window ecb-compile-window. If the currently opened buffer within the compilation window is not a compilation buffer, we jump to the first compilation buffer. If not we try to loop through all compilation buffers. If we hit the end we go back to the beginning.

     If CHOOSE-BUFFER is not nil then the user will be prompted for the compilation-buffer to swtich to.

     See also the option ecb-layout-switch-to-compilation-window! The difference is that this cycling-function offers only compilation-buffers in the sense of ecb-compilation-buffer-p whereas the adviced version of switch-to-buffer offers any buffer but switches to ecb-compile-window if a compilation-buffer!

 -- Command: ecb-deactivate
     Deactivates the ECB and kills all ECB buffers and windows.

 -- Command: ecb-display-upgraded-options
     Display a message-buffer which options have been upgraded or reset.

 -- Command: ecb-download-ecb
     Download ECB from the ECB-website and install it. For this the options ecb-download-url and ecb-download-version must be set correct, whereas the default value of the former one should always be correct.

     For details about downloading and what requirements must be satisfied see Downloading new versions!

     After sucessfull downloading the new ECB will be installed in a directory parallel to current ECB-directory. After adding this new directory tp load-path and restarting Emacs the new ECB version can be activated by ecb-activate.

 -- Command: ecb-goto-window-compilation
     Goto the ecb compilation window ecb-compile-window.

 -- Command: ecb-goto-window-directories
     Make the ECB-directories window the current window.

 -- Command: ecb-goto-window-edit1
     Make the (first) edit-window window the current window.

 -- Command: ecb-goto-window-edit2
     Make the second edit-window (if available) window the current window.

 -- Command: ecb-goto-window-history
     Make the ECB-history window the current window.

 -- Command: ecb-goto-window-methods
     Make the ECB-methods window the current window.

 -- Command: ecb-goto-window-sources
     Make the ECB-sources window the current window.

 -- Command: ecb-minor-mode &optional arg
     Toggle ECB minor mode. With prefix argument ARG, turn on if positive, otherwise off. Return non-nil if the minor mode is enabled.

 -- Command: ecb-nav-goto-previous
     Go backward in the navigation historylist, see Back/forward navigation.

 -- Command: ecb-nav-goto-next
     Go forward in the navigation historylist, see Back/forward navigation.

 -- Command: ecb-rebuild-methods-buffer
     Updates the methods buffer with the current buffer after deleting the complete previous parser-information, means no semantic-cache is used! Point must stay in an edit-window otherwise nothing is done. This method is merely needed if semantic parses not the whole buffer because it reaches a not parsable code. Examples when a call to this function is necessary:

     If an elisp-file is parsed which contains in the middle a defun X where the closing ) is missing then semantic parses only until this defun X is reached and you will get an incomplete ECB-method buffer. In such a case you must complete the defun X and then call this function to completely reparse the elisp-file and rebuild the ECB method buffer!

     If you change only the name of a method or a variable and you want the new name be shown immediately in the ECB-method buffer then you must call this function.

 -- Command: ecb-redraw-layout
     Redraw the ECB screen. If the variable ecb-redraw-layout-quickly is not nil then the redraw is done by the ecb-redraw-layout-quickly function, otherwise by ecb-redraw-layout-full. But it's strongly recommended to use the quick redraw only if you have really slow machines where a full redraw takes several seconds because the quick redraw is not really safe and may have some drawbacks! On normal machines the full drawback should be done in << 1s!

 -- Command: ecb-show-help &optional format
     Shows the online help of ECB either in Info or in HTML format depending of the value of ecb-show-help-format. If called with prefix argument, i.e. if FORMAT is not nil then the user is prompted to choose the format of the help (Info or HTML).

 -- Command: ecb-submit-problem-report
     Submit a problem report for the ECB to the ECB mailing-list. This command generates in the edit-window a problem-report which contains already the current values of all ECB options, the current backtrace-buffer if there is any and the current message-buffer. You will be asked for a problem-report subject and then you must insert a description of the problem. Please describe the problem as detailed as possible!

 -- Command: ecb-toggle-ecb-windows &optional arg
     Toggle visibilty of the ECB-windows. With prefix argument ARG, make visible if positive, otherwise invisible. This has nothing to do with (de)activating ECB but only affects the visibility of the ECB windows. ECB minor mode remains active!

 -- Command: ecb-toggle-enlarged-compilation-window &optional arg
     Toggle whether the ecb-compile-window is enlarged or not. If ARG > 0 then enlarge to a sensefull value (see below), if ARG <= 0 then shrink ecb-compile-window to ecb-compile-window-height and if ARG is nil then toggle the enlarge-state.

     The ecb-compile-window is enlarged to the following value: At least to the value of ecb-compile-window-height and max. to half of the frame-height of the ECB-frame, best depending on the values of compilation-window-height (before ECB was started!) and the number of lines of current buffer in ecb-compile-window. If compilation-window-height is set before ECB was started then ECB never enlarges the ecb-compile-window over the value of compilation-window-height! Changing this option during activated ECB takes first effect after restarting ECB!

 -- Command: ecb-toggle-layout
     Toggles between the layouts defined in ecb-toggle-layout-sequence. Note: This function works by changing the options ecb-layout-nr and ecb-show-sources-in-directories-buffer but only for current Emacs-session.

 -- Command: ecb-update-directories-buffer
     Updates the ECB directories buffer.

 -- Command: ecb-upgrade-options
     Check for all ECB-options if their current value is compatible to the defined type. If not upgrade it to the new type or reset it to the default-value of current ECB. Try also to upgrade renamed options. Displays all upgraded or reset options with their old (before the upgrade/reset) and new values.

Most of these functions are also available via the menu ``ECB'' and also via the ECB keymap with prefix C-c . (see ecb-minor-mode for a complete list of the keybindings).

Customizing ECB
***************

This chapter describes how to customize ECB for your personal taste. The first chapter gives an overview of the most important options and the second one lists all options of ECB.

ATTENTION: The best way you customize all the options of ECB is via the customize-feature of (X)Emacs, i.e. means calling the commands customize-option or customize-group etc. This is also the strongly recommended way!

But of course you can also use setq or some elisp-code to change the values of many but not all of the options. The values of the following options MUST NOT be changed via setq or elisp-code but only with the customize-feature!

  - ecb-source-path

  - ecb-tree-RET-selects-edit-window

  - ecb-font-lock-tokens

  - ecb-bucket-token-display

  - ecb-token-display-function

  - ecb-type-token-display

  - ecb-show-tokens

  - ecb-exclude-parents-regexp

  - ecb-highlight-token-with-point-delay

  - ecb-window-sync-delay

  - ecb-show-node-info-in-minibuffer

  - ecb-key-map

  - ecb-layout-nr

  - ecb-compile-window-height

  - ecb-compile-window-temporally-enlarge

  - ecb-windows-width

  - ecb-windows-height

  - ecb-advice-window-functions

  - ecb-layout-window-sizes

  - ecb-mode-line-prefixes

The most important options of ECB
=================================

Here are the most important options (it is recommended to check at least the following options before working with ECB):

ecb-source-path
     Where ECB can find your sources. You must set this option!

ecb-show-help-format
     Should the online help of ECB be displayed in the standard Info format or in HTML format in a web-browser.

ecb-auto-activate
ecb-major-modes-activate
ecb-major-modes-deactivate
     Auto. (de)activation of ECB

ecb-key-map
     All ECB-keybindings incl. a common prefixkey (see Using the keyboard).

ecb-new-ecb-frame
     Should ECB create a new frame at activation time.

ecb-primary-secondary-mouse-buttons
ecb-primary-mouse-jump-destination
     Define how to use the mouse (see Using the mouse).

ecb-tree-expand-symbol-before
ecb-tree-indent
     The look&feel of the trees in the tree-buffers. Maybe you like a value of 4 for the latter one if you display the expand-symbol before (see Changing the ECB-layout).

ecb-source-file-regexps
     Which files will (not) be shown in ECB.

ecb-show-node-info-in-minibuffer
     When and which node-info should be displayed in the minibuffer?

ecb-layout-nr
     The ECB layout, means which windows you want to be displayed in the ECB-frame and also the location of these windows (see Changing the ECB-layout).

ecb-token-display-function
ecb-type-token-display
ecb-show-tokens
     How to display the entries in the ECB-method window (see Customizing the display).

But to make ECB working best for you it is also recommened to have a look at Customizable options!

All customizable options of ECB
===============================

All customization of ECB is divided into the following ``customize groups''. You can highly customize all the ECB behavior/layout so just go to these groups and you will see all well documented ECB-options.

Group ecb-general
-----------------

This group contains the following options:

 -- User Option: ecb-activate-before-layout-draw-hook
     Normal hook run at the end of activating the ecb-package by running ecb-activate. This hooks are run after all the internal setup process but directly before(!) drawing the layout specified in ecb-layout (means before dividing the frame into several windows).

     A senseful using of this hook can be maximizing the Emacs-frame for example, because this should be done before the layout is drawn because ECB computes the size of the ECB-windows with the current frame size! If you need a hook-option for the real end of the activating process (i.e. after the layout-drawing) look at ecb-activate-hook.

 -- User Option: ecb-activate-hook
     Normal hook run at the end of activating the ecb-package by running ecb-activate. This hooks are run at the real end of the activating process, means after the layout has been drawn!. If you need hooks which are run direct before the layout-drawing look at ecb-activate-before-layout-draw-hook.

 -- User Option: ecb-auto-activate
     Automatically startup ECB when Emacs starts up. This should only be true if you always want to run ecb-activate.

 -- User Option: ecb-auto-compatibility-check
     Check at ECB-startup if all ECB-options have correct values. If not nil then all ECB-options are checked if their current value have the correct type. It the type is incorrect the option is either auto. upgraded to the new type or reset to the default-value of current ECB if no upgrade is possible. This feature can also upgrade options which are renamed in current ECB and try to transform the old-value to the new named option. After startup all upgraded or reset options are displayed with their old (before upgrade/reset) and new values. See also the commands ecb-upgrade-options and ecb-display-upgraded-options. If this option is off then the user can perform the check and reset manually with ecb-upgrade-options. See Auto. option-upgrading.

 -- User Option: ecb-current-buffer-sync-hook
     Normal hook run at the end of ecb-current-buffer-sync.

 -- User Option: ecb-deactivate-hook
     Normal hook run at the end of deactivating (but before the ecb-layout is cleared!) ECB by running ecb-deactivate.

 -- User Option: ecb-debug-mode
     If not nil ECB displays debug-information in the Messages-buffer. This is done for some critical situations concerning semantic-tokens and their overlays (or extends for XEmacs). Normally you should not need this switched on! But if you get errors like ``destroyed extend'' for XEmacs or ``wrong-argument-type'' concerning overlays for GNU Emacs then you should switch on this option and submitting a bug-report to the ecb-mailing-list (ecb-submit-problem-report) after getting the error again!

 -- User Option: ecb-key-map
     Specifies all keybindings for the ECB minor-mode keymap. The value is a cons-cell where the car is a common-prefix key for all the keybindings. The cdr is a list of keybindings each of them a list again. A keybinding has the following form:

          '(<common-prefix-flag> <keysequence> <function>) where

     <common-prefix-flag>
          If t then the common-prefixkey defined as car of the value (see above) is used.

     <keysequence>
          If the common prefixkey is used then the final keybinding is the concatenation of the common-prefixkey (see above) and this keysequence.

     <function>:
          The function to bind to the key. This can also be a lambda-expression .

     It is highly recommended to use one of the standard keys C-c or C-x as first key of your common-prefixkey!

     You MUST change this option via customize to take effect!

     All keysequences must be inserted as a string and must follow the syntax needed by read-kbd-macro or kbd. This means you can insert the key in the same manner C-h k displays keysequences. Here is the summary of the syntax:

     Text is divided into ``words'' separated by whitespace. Except for the words described below, the characters of each word go directly as characters of the keysequence. The whitespace that separates words is ignored. Whitespace in the macro must be written explicitly, as in C-c SPC.

       * The special words RET, SPC, TAB, DEL, LFD, ESC, and NUL represent special control characters. The words must be written in uppercase.

       * A word in angle brackets, e.g., <return>, <down>, <left> or <f1>, represents a function key. (Note that in the standard configuration, the function key <return> and the control key RET are synonymous.). You can use angle brackets on the words RET, SPC, etc., but they are not required there.

       * Keys can be written by their ASCII code, using a backslash followed by up to six octal digits. This is the only way to represent keys with codes above ÿ.

       * One or more prefixes M- (meta), C- (control), S- (shift), A- (alt), H- (hyper), and s- (super) may precede a character or key notation. For function keys, the prefixes may go inside or outside of the brackets: C-<down> = <C-down>. The prefixes may be written in any order: M-C-x = C-M-x. Prefixes are not allowed on multi-key words, e.g., C-abc, except that the Meta prefix is allowed on a sequence of digits and optional minus sign: M--123 = M-- M-1 M-2 M-3.

       * The ^ notation for control characters also works: ^M = C-m.

 -- User Option: ecb-major-modes-activate
     List of major-modes for which ECB shoulb be activated or shown. Do not mistake this option with ecb-auto-activate. The latter one is for activating ECB after Emacs-startup (even without opening a buffer) and this one is for defining for which major-modes ECB should be activated if the mode goes active!

     The behaviour is like follows: If a mode is contained in this option ECB is activated after activating this mode (if ECB was deactivated before) or the ECB-windows are shown if ECB was already active but its windows were hidden. In every case ECB is activated with visible ECB-windows afterwards!

     For every major mode there can be specified an ecb-layout-nr:

       - default: The value customized with ecb-layout-nr is choosen.

       - an integer: ECB is activated with this layout-nr. This changes the value of ecb-layout-nr but only for current emacs-session! But the layout is only changed if ECB was activated, if just the ECB-windows were shown, the current layout is used!

     There are two additional options:

       - none: No major-modes should activate ECB automatically.

       - a regexp: This means all major-modes which are not listed in ecb-major-modes-deactivate activate ECB except the symbol-name of major-mode matches this regexp. If this option is set then the default regexp excludes all Info- and customize-buffers because this buffers should not change anything in the ECB-activation state.

     Any auto. activation is only done if the current-frame is unsplitted to avoid changing unnecessarily or unintentionally the frame-layout if the user just jumps between different windows.

 -- User Option: ecb-major-modes-deactivate
     List of major-modes for which ECB should be deactivated or hidden. Specify if ECB should be deactivated or at least hidden if a major-mode is active. For each major-mode there must be added an action what should be done:

       - hide: ECB just hides all the ECB windows like with ecb-hide-ecb-windows.

       - deactivate: ECB is completely deactivated after activating the major-mode.

     There are two additional options:

       * none: No major-modes should deactivate/hide ECB automatically.

       * A cons for the meaning ``All except the activated modes of ecb-major-modes-activate''. The car of this cons can be:

            - hide-all-except-activated: All major-modes which are not listed in ecb-major-modes-activate hide the ECB-windows.

            - deactivate-all-except-activated: All major-modes which are not listed in ecb-major-modes-activate deactivate ECB.

          The cdr of this cons is a regexp: This means all major-modes which are not listed in ecb-major-modes-activate deactivate/hide ECB except the symbol-name of major-mode matches this regexp. If this option is set then the default regexp excludes all Info- and customize-buffers because this buffers should not change anything in the ECB-activation state.

     If a major-mode is listed in ecb-major-modes-activate as well as in ecb-major-modes-deactivate then ECB is activated!

     Any auto. deactivation/hiding is only done if the edit-window of ECB is unsplitted and point is in the edit-window to avoid changing unnecessarily or unintentionally the frame-layout if the user just jumps between different edit-windows, the tree-windows and the compile-window of ECB.

 -- User Option: ecb-minor-mode-text
     String to display in the mode line when ECB minor mode is active. (When the string is not empty, make sure that it has a leading space.)

 -- User Option: ecb-mode-line-prefixes
     Prefixes shown in the modelines of the ECB buffers. The displayed prefix then looks like: ``[ <PREFIX>[: ]]'', means if a prefix is defined for an ECB buffer then a single space is prepended and if there is additional text to display (e.g. the current directory in the sources buffer) then also the string ``: `` is appended.

 -- User Option: ecb-primary-mouse-jump-destination
     Jump-destination of a primary mouse-button click (see ecb-primary-secondary-mouse-buttons) in an ECB-window, if you click onto a source or method or variable. Defines in which edit-window (if splitted) ECB does the ``right'' action (opening the source, jumping to a method/variable). There are two possible choices:

       - left-top: Does the ``right'' action always in the left/topmost edit-window.

       - last-point: Does the ``right'' action always in that edit-window which had the point before.

     If the edit-window is not splitted this setting doesn't matter.

     Note: A click with the secondary mouse-button (see again ecb-primary-secondary-mouse-buttons does the ``right'' action always in the ``other'' window related to the setting in this option.

 -- User Option: ecb-primary-secondary-mouse-buttons
     Primary- and secondary mouse button for using the ECB-buffers. A click with the primary button causes the main effect in each ECB-buffer:

       * ECB Directories: Expanding/collapsing nodes and displaying files in the ECB Sources buffer.

       * ECB sources/history: Opening the file in that edit-window specified by the option ecb-primary-mouse-jump-destination.

       * ECB Methods: Jumping to the method in that edit-window specified by the option ecb-primary-mouse-jump-destination.

     A click with the primary mouse-button while the SHIFT-key is pressed only displays the complete clicked node in the minibuffer. This is useful if the node is longer as the window-width of the ECB-window and ecb-truncate-lines is not nil.

     The secondary mouse-button is for opening (jumping to) the file in the other window (see the documentation ecb-primary-mouse-jump-destination).

     The following combinations are possible:

       - primary: mouse-2, secondary: C-mouse-2 (means mouse-2 while CTRL-key is pressed). This is the default setting.

       - primary: mouse-1, secondary: C-mouse-1

       - primary: mouse-1, secondary: mouse-2

     If you change this during ECB is activated you must deactivate and activate ECB again to take effect

 -- User Option: ecb-show-help-format
     The format ecb-show-help shows its online help. Allowed values are 'info (for the Info format) and 'html (for HTML format). If the value is 'html then browse-url-browser-function says which browser is used.

 -- User Option: ecb-show-node-info-in-minibuffer
     Define which node info should displayed in a tree-buffer after mouse moving over the node or after a shift click onto the node.

     For every tree-buffer you can define ``when'' node info should be displayed:

       - always: Node info is displayed by moving with the mouse over a node.

       - if-too-long: Node info is only displayed by moving with the mouse over a node does not fit into the window-width of the tree-buffer window. In the ECB directories buffer this means also if a node is shortend or if the node has an alias (see ecb-source-path).

       - shift-click: Node info is only displayed after a shift click with the primary mouse button onto the node.

       - never: Node info is never displayed.

     For every tree-buffer you can define what info should be displayed:

       * Directory-buffer:

            - name: Only the full node-name is displayed.

            - path: The full-path of the node is displayed.

       * Sources-buffer:

            - name: Only the full node-name is displayed.

            - file-info: File infos for this file are displayed.

            - file-info-full: Fill infos incl. full path for this file are displayed.

       * History-buffer: see Directories-buffer.

       * Methods-buffer:

            - name: Only the full node name is displayed.

            - name+type: The full name + the type of the node (function, class, variable) is displayed.

     Do NOT set this option directly via setq but use always customize!

 -- User Option: ecb-temp-dir
     Specify a directory where ECB can store temporary files.

 -- User Option: ecb-tree-RET-selects-edit-window
     In which tree-buffers RET should finally select an edit-window. If a name of an ECB tree-buffer is contained in this list then hitting RET in this tree-buffer selects as last action the right edit-window otherwise only the right action is performed (opening a new source, selecting a method etc.) but point stays in the tree-buffer.

     A special remark for the ecb-directories-buffer-name: Of course here the edit-window is only selected if ecb-show-sources-in-directories-buffer is not nil (otherwise this would not make any sense)!

     The setting in this option is only the default for each tree-buffer. With ecb-toggle-RET-selects-edit-window the behavior of RET can be changed fast and easy in a tree-buffer without customizing this option, but of course not for future Emacs sessions!

 -- User Option: ecb-tree-expand-symbol-before
     Show the expand symbol before the items in a tree.

 -- User Option: ecb-tree-incremental-search
     Enable incremental search in the ECB-tree-buffers. For a detailed explanation see Using the keyboard. If you change this during ECB is activated you must deactivate and activate ECB again to take effect.

 -- User Option: ecb-tree-indent
     Indent size for tree buffer. If you change this during ECB is activated you must deactivate and activate ECB again to take effect.

 -- User Option: ecb-tree-navigation-by-arrow
     Enable smart navigation in the tree-windows by horiz. arrow-keys. If not nil then the left- and right-arrow keys work in the ECB tree-window in the following smart way if onto an expandable node:

       * Left-arrow: If node is expanded then it will be collapsed otherwise point jumps to the next ``higher'' node in the hierarchical tree (higher means the next higher tree-level or - if no higher level available - the next higher node on the same level).

       * Right-arrow: If node is not expanded then it will be expanded. Onto a not expandable node the horizontal arrow-keys go one character in the senseful correct direction.

     If this option is changed the new value takes first effect after deactivating ECB and then activating it again!

 -- User Option: ecb-truncate-lines
     Truncate lines in ECB buffers. If you change this during ECB is activated you must deactivate and activate ECB again to take effect.

 -- User Option: ecb-truncate-long-names
     Truncate long names that don't fit in the width of the ECB windows. If you change this during ECB is activated you must deactivate and activate ECB again to take effect.

 -- User Option: ecb-use-recursive-edit
     Tell ECB to use a recursive edit so that it can easily be deactivated by (keyboard-escape-quit).

 -- User Option: ecb-version-check
     If not nil ECB checks at start-time if the required versions of semantic and eieio are installed and loaded into Emacs. It is strongly recommended to set this option to not nil!

 -- User Option: ecb-window-sync
     Synchronize the ECB-windows automatically with current edit window. If always then the synchronization takes place always a buffer changes in the edit window, if nil then never. If a list of major-modes then only if the major-mode of the new buffer belongs NOT to this list.

     But in every case the synchronization takes only place if the current-buffer in the edit-window has a relation to files or directories. Examples for the former one are all programming-language-modes, Info-mode too, an example for the latter one is dired-mode. For all major-modes related to non-file/directory-buffers like help-mode, customize-mode and others never a synchronization will be done!

     It's recommended to exclude at least Info-mode because it makes no sense to synchronize the ECB-windows after calling the Info help. Per default also dired-mode is excluded but it can also making sense to synchronize the ECB-directories/sources windows with the current directory in the dired-buffer.

 -- User Option: ecb-window-sync-delay
     Time Emacs must be idle before the ECB-windows are synchronized with current edit window. If nil then there is no delay, means synchronization takes place immediately. A small value of about 0.25 seconds saves CPU resources and you get even though almost the same effect as if you set no delay.

Group ecb-directories
---------------------

This group contains the following options:

 -- User Option: ecb-add-path-for-not-matching-files
     Add path of a file to ecb-source-path if not already contained. This is done during the auto. windows synchronization which happens if a file is opened not via the file/directory-browser of ECB. In such a situation ECB adds the path of the new file auto. to ecb-source-path at least temporally for the current Emacs session. This option defines two things:

      1. Should only the root-part (which means for unix-like systems always '/' and for windows-like systems the drive) of the new file be added as source-path to ecb-source-path or the whole directory-part?

      2. Should this path be added for future sessions too?

     The value of this option is a cons-cell where the car is a boolean for 1. and the cdr is a boolean for 2.

     A value of not nil for the car (1.) is reasonably if a user often opens files not via the ECB-browser which are not located in any of the paths of ecb-source-path because then only one path for each drive (windows) or the root-path (unix) is added to the directory buffer of ECB.

 -- User Option: ecb-auto-expand-directory-tree
     Automatically expand the directory tree to the current source file. There are three options:

       - best: Expand the best-matching source-path

       - first: Expand the first matching source-path

       - nil: Do not automatically expand the directory tree.

 -- User Option: ecb-cache-directory-contents
     Cache contents of directories.

     This can be useful if ecb-source-path contains directories with many files and subdirs, especially if these directories are mounted net-drives (``many'' means here something > 1000, dependend of the speed of the net-connection and the machine). For these directories actualizing the sources- and/or directories- buffer of ECB (if displayed in current layout!) can slow down dramatically so a caching increases speed a lot.

     The value of this option is a list where each element looks like:

            (<dir-regexp> <filenumber threshold> <cache clearing> with

     <dir-regexp>:
          Regular expression a directory must match to be cached.

     <filenumber threshold>:
          Number of directory contents must exceed this number.

     <cache clearing>:
          When the cache should be cleared:

            - demand: Cache will only be cleared on user demand. See ecb-clear-directory-cache.

            - auto: Cache will be cleared if the contents of the directory have been changed. ECB can detect this automatically. This works for Unix- but probably not for Windows-systems, because Windows offers no way to detect when the contents of a directory have been changed.

            - <number>: First selection of directories matching the regexp after <number> seconds after last caching time will rescan the directory.

     A directory will we only be cached if and only if the directory-name matches one rexexp of this option and it's content-number exceeds the related threshold.

     Example: A value of ("~/bigdir*" 1000 3600) means the contents of every subdirectory of the home-directory with name beginning with ``bigdir'' will be cached if the directory contains more than 1000 entries. One hour after the last caching time of such a directory the next selection (clicking onto it in the directories-window, changing buffers so the directory becomes current in the directories-window, etc...) will rescan the directory and update the cache.

     Attention: Currently the <cache clearing> part is ignored. Currently the cache can only be cleared on demand and only the whole cache can be cleared, see ecb-clear-directory-cache. This will change in a future version.

 -- User Option: ecb-directories-buffer-name
     Name of the ECB directory buffer. Because it is not a normal buffer for editing you should enclose the name with stars, e.g. `` *ECB Directories*''.

     If it is necessary for you you can get emacs-lisp access to the buffer-object of the ECB-directory-buffer by this name, e.g. by a call of set-buffer.

     Changes for this option at runtime will take affect only after deactivating and then activating ECB again!

 -- User Option: ecb-excluded-directories-regexp
     Specifies directories that should not be included in the directories list. The value of this variable should be a regular expression.

 -- User Option: ecb-show-sources-in-directories-buffer
     Show source files in directories buffer.

 -- User Option: ecb-source-path
     Paths where to find code sources. Each path can have an optional alias that is used as it's display name. If no alias is set, the path is used as display name.

Group ecb-sources
-----------------

This group contains the following options:

 -- User Option: ecb-show-source-file-extension
     Show the file extension of source files.

 -- User Option: ecb-source-file-regexps
     Specifies which files are shown as source files. Consists of one exclude regexp and one include regexp. A file is displayed in the source-buffer of ECB iff: The file does not match the exclude regexp OR the file matches the include regexp. There are three predefined and useful combinations of an exclude and include regexp:

       * All files

       * All, but no backup, object, lib or ini-files (except .emacs and .gnus). This means all files except those starting with ``.'', ``#'' or ending with ``~'', ``.elc'', ``.obj'', ``.o'', ``.lib'', ``.dll'', ``.a'', ``.so''. (but including .emacs and .gnus)

       * Common source file types (.c, .java etc.)

     In addition to these predefined values a custom exclude and include combination can be defined.

 -- User Option: ecb-sources-buffer-name
     Name of the ECB sources buffer. Because it is not a normal buffer for editing you should enclose the name with stars, e.g. ``*ECB Sources*''.

     If it is necessary for you you can get emacs-lisp access to the buffer-object of the ECB-sources-buffer by this name, e.g. by a call of set-buffer.

     Changes for this option at runtime will take affect only after deactivating and then activating ECB again!

 -- User Option: ecb-sources-sort-method
     Defines how the source files are sorted.

       - name: Sorting by name.

       - extension: Sorting first by name and then by extension.

       - nil: No sorting, means source files are displayed in the sequence returned by directory-files (called without sorting).

Group ecb-methods
-----------------

This group contains the following options:

 -- User Option: ecb-auto-update-methods-after-save
     Automatically updating the ECB method buffer after saving the current source-buffer.

 -- User Option: ecb-bucket-token-display
     How ECB displays bucket tokens in the ECB methods buffer. Bucket tokens are tokens like ``[+] Variables'', ``[+] Dependencies'' etc. The name of the bucket-token comes from semantic but you can define a prefix, a suffix and a special face for the bucket token.

     The default are empty prefix/suffix-strings and 'ecb-bucket-token-face'. But an alternative can be for example ("[" "]" nil) which means no special face and a display like ``[+] [<bucket-name>]''.

 -- User Option: ecb-exclude-parents-regexp
     Regexp which parent classes should not be shown in the methods buffer (see also ecb-show-parents). If nil then all parents will be shown if ecb-show-parents is not nil.

 -- User Option: ecb-font-lock-tokens
     Adds font-locking (means highlighting) to the ECB-method buffer.

 -- User Option: ecb-highlight-token-header-after-jump
     If not nil then highlight the token line in the source-buffer after jumping to this method by clicking in the ECB-method-buffer onto this method. For highlighting ecb-token-header-face is used.

 -- User Option: ecb-highlight-token-with-point
     How to highlight the method or variable under the cursor.

       - highlight-scroll: Always scroll the method buffer, so the current method of the edit-window is highlighted in the method-window.

       - highlight: Only highlight the current method of the edit window in the method window if the method is visible in the method-window.

       - nil: No highlighting is done.

     See also ecb-highlight-token-with-point-delay.

 -- User Option: ecb-highlight-token-with-point-delay
     Time Emacs must be idle before current token is highlighted. If nil then there is no delay, means current token is highlighted immediately. A small value of about 0.25 seconds saves CPU resources and you get even though almost the same effect as if you set no delay. But such a delay prevents also ``jumping backward/forward'' during scrolling within java-classes if point goes out of method-definition into class-definition. Therefore the default value is a delay of 0.25 seconds.

 -- User Option: ecb-token-jump-narrow
     When jumping to a token from the ECB methods buffer narrows the buffer to only show that token. To display the entire buffer again, click on a source file or call widen C-x n w.

 -- User Option: ecb-token-jump-sets-mark
     Jumping to a token from the ECB-method buffer now sets the mark so the user can easily jump back.

 -- User Option: ecb-methods-buffer-name
     Name of the ECB methods buffer. Because it is not a normal buffer for editing you should enclose the name with stars, e.g. `` *ECB Methods*''.

     If it is necessary for you you can get emacs-lisp access to the buffer-object of the ECB-methods-buffer by this name, e.g. by a call of set-buffer.

     Changes for this option at runtime will take affect only after deactivating and then activating ECB again!

 -- User Option: ecb-post-process-semantic-tokenlist
     Define mode-dependend postprocessing for the semantic-tokenlist. This is an alist where the car is a major-mode symbol and the cdr is a function-symbol of a function which should be used for post-processing the tokenlist (returned by semantic-bovinate-toplevel) for a buffer in this major-mode. Such a function is called with current semantic tokenlist of current buffer and must return a valid tokenlist again.

     For oo-programming languages where the methods of a class can be defined outside the class-definition (e.g. C++, Eieio) the function ecb-group-function-tokens-with-parents can be used to get a much better method-display in the methods-window of ECB, because all method implementations of a class are grouped together.

 -- User Option: ecb-scroll-window-after-jump
     How to scroll the window when jumping to a token.

 -- User Option: ecb-show-only-positioned-tokens
     Show only nodes in the method-buffer which are ``jumpable''. If not nil then ECB displays in the method-buffer only nodes which are ``jumpable'', i.e. after selecting it by clicking or with RET then ECB jumps to the corresponding location in the edit-window. Example: With CLOS or Eieio source-code there can exist some positionless nodes like variable-attributes in a defclass form which are only displayed if this option is nil. Displaying such nodes can be sensefull even if they can not be jumped.

 -- User Option: ecb-show-tokens
     How to show tokens in the methods buffer. This variable is a list where each element represents a type of tokens:

          (<token type> <display type> <sort method>)

     The tokens in the methods buffer are displayed in the order as they appear in this list.

     <token type>
          A Semantic token type symbol (function, variable, rule, include etc.) or one of the following:

            - t: All token types not specified anywhere else in the list.

            - parent: The parents of a type.

     <display type>
          A symbol which describes how the tokens of this type shall be shown:

            - expanded: The tokens are shown in an expanded node.

            - collapsed: The tokens are shown in a collapsed node.

            - flattened: The tokens are added to the parent node.

            - hidden: The tokens are not shown.

     <sort method>
          A symbol describing how to sort the tokens of this type:

            - name: Sort by the token name.

            - access: Sort by token access (public, protected, private) and then by name.

            - nil: Don't sort tokens. They appear in the same order as in the source buffer.

 -- User Option: ecb-token-display-function
     Function to use for displaying tokens in the methods buffer. This functionality is set on major-mode base, i.e. for every major-mode a different function can be used. The value of this option is a list of cons-cells:

       - The car is either a major-mode symbol or the special symbol 'default which means if no function for a certain major-mode is defined then the cdr of the 'default cons-cell is used.

       - The cdr is the function used for displaying a token in the related major-mode.

     Every function is called with 3 arguments:

      1. The token

      2. The parent-token of token (can be nil)

      3. The value of ecb-font-lock-tokens.

     Every function must return the display of the token as string, colorized if the third argument is not nil.

     The following functions are predefined:

       * All functions of semantic-token->text-functions.

       * For every function in semantic-token->text-functions with name ``semantic-XYZ'' a function with name ``ecb-XYC'' is predefined. The differences between the semantic- and the ECB-version are:

            - The ECB-version displays for type tokens only the type-name and nothing else (exception: In c++-mode a template specifier is appended to the type-name if a template instead a normal class).

            - The ECB-version displays type-tokens according to the setting in ecb-type-token-display. This is useful for better recognizing different classes, structs etc. in the ECB-method window.

          For all tokens which are not types the display of the ECB-version is identical to the semantic version. Example: For semantic-name-nonterminal the pendant is ecb-name-nonterminal.

     This functionality also allows the user to display tokens as UML. To enable this functionality set the function for a major-mode (e.g. jde-mode) to semantic-uml-concise-prototype-nonterminal, semantic-uml-prototype-nonterminal, or semantic-uml-abbreviate-nonterminal or the ECB-versions of these functions.

     If the value is nil, i.e. neither a function for a major-mode is defined nor the special 'default, then semantic-prototype-nonterminal is used for displaying the tokens.

 -- User Option: ecb-token-jump-narrow
     When jumping to a token from the ECB methods buffer narrows the buffer to only show that token. To display the entire buffer again, click on a source file or call widen (C-x n w).

 -- User Option: ecb-token-jump-sets-mark
     Jumping to a token from the ECB-method buffer now sets the mark so the user can easily jump back.

 -- User Option: ecb-type-token-display
     How to display semantic type-tokens in the methods buffer. Normally all token displaying, colorizing and facing is done by semantic according to the value of semantic-face-alist and the semantic display-function (e.g. one from semantic-token->text-functions). But sometimes a finer distinction in displaying the different type specifiers of type-tokens can be usefull. For a description when this option is evaluated look at ecb-token-display-function!

     This functionality is set on a major-mode base, i.e. for every major-mode a different setting can be used. The value of this option is a list of cons-cells:

       * The car is either a major-mode symbol or the special symbol 'default which means if no setting for a certain major-mode is defined then the cdr of the 'default cons-cell is used.

       * The cdr is a list of 3-element-lists:

           1. First entry is a semantic type specifier in string-form. Current available type specifiers are for example ``class'', ``interface'', ``struct'', ``typedef'' and ``enum''. In addition to these ones there is also a special ECB type specifier ``group'' which is related to grouping tokens (see ecb-post-process-semantic-tokenlist and ecb-group-function-tokens-with-parents). Any arbitrary specifier can be set here but if it is not ``group'' or not known by semantic it will be useless.

           2. Second entry is a flag which indicates if the type-specifier string from (1.) itself should be removed (if there is any) from the display.

           3. Third entry is the face which is used in the ECB-method window to display type-tokens with this specifier. ECB has some predefined faces for this (ecb-type-token-class-face, ecb-type-token-struct-face, ecb-type-token-typedef-face, ecb-type-token-enum-face and ecb-type-token-group-face) but any arbitrary face can be set here. This face is merged with the faces semantic already uses to display a token, i.e. the result is a display where all face-attributes of the ECB-face take effect plus all face-attributes of the semantic-faces which are not set in the ECB-face (with XEmacs this merge doesn't work so here the ECB-face replaces the semantic-faces; this may be fixed in future versions).

     The default value is nil means there is no special ECB-displaying of type-tokens in addition to the displaying and colorizing semantic does. But a value like the following could be a usefull setting:

          ((default
             ("class" t ecb-type-token-class-face)
             ("group" nil ecb-type-token-group-face))
           (c-mode
            ("struct" nil ecb-type-token-struct-face)
            ("typedef" nil ecb-type-token-typedef-face)))

     This means that in c-mode only ``struct''s and ``typedef''s are displayed with special faces (the specifiers itself are not removed) and in all other modes ``class''es and grouping-tokens (see ecb-token-display-function, ecb-group-function-tokens-with-parents) have special faces and the ``class'' specifier-string is removed from the display.

Group ecb-history
-----------------

This group contains the following options:

 -- User Option: ecb-clear-history-behavior
     Defines which entries of the history buffer should be deleted if ecb-clear-history is called. Three options are available:

       - not-existing-buffers: All entries which represent a buffername not existing anymore in the bufferlist will be cleared. Probably the most senseful value.

       - existing-buffers: The opposite of 'not-existing-buffers.

       - all: The whole history will be cleared.

 -- User Option: ecb-history-buffer-name
     Name of the ECB history buffer. Because it is not a normal buffer for editing you should enclose the name with stars, e.g. ``*ECB History*''.

     If it is necessary for you you can get emacs-lisp access to the buffer-object of the ECB-history-buffer by this name, e.g. by a call of set-buffer.

     Changes for this option at runtime will take affect only after deactivating and then activating ECB again!

 -- User Option: ecb-history-item-name
     The name to use for items in the history buffer.

 -- User Option: ecb-kill-buffer-clears-history
     Define if kill-buffer should also clear the history. There are three options:

       - auto: Removes automatically the corresponding history-entry after the buffer has been killed.

       - ask: Asks, if the history-entry should be removed after the kill.

       - nil: kill-buffer does not affect the history (this is the default).

 -- User Option: ecb-sort-history-items
     Sorts the items in the history buffer.

Group ecb-layout
----------------

This group contains the following options:

 -- User Option: ecb-activate-before-new-frame-created-hook
     Normal hook run before the new ECB-frame is created if ecb-new-ecb-frame is not nil (otherwise this hook is not evaluated).

 -- User Option: ecb-advice-window-functions
     Use the intelligent windows functions of ECB instead of the standard Emacs functions. You can choose the following functions to be adviced by ECB so they behave as if the edit-window(s) of ECB would be the only windows(s) of the ECB-frame:

       * other-window For this one see also the option ecb-other-window-jump-behavior!

       * delete-window

       * delete-other-windows

       * delete-windows-on

       * split-window-horizontally

       * split-window-vertically

       * switch-to-buffer

       * switch-to-buffer-other-window

       * other-window-for-scrolling If this advice is enabled then the following functions scroll always the first edit-window if the edit-window is splitted, point stays in the ``other'' edit-window and there is no durable compilation-window (see ecb-compile-window-height):

            - scroll-other-window

            - scroll-other-window-down

            - beginning-of-buffer-other-window

            - end-of-buffer-other-window

          This advice is per default not enabled.

     For working most conveniantly with ECB it is the best to advice all these functions, because then all the standard shortcuts of these functions are also usable with ECB without doing anything else. Also other packages can interact best with ECB if these functions are all adviced. If these adviced functions are called in another frame than the ECB-frame they behave all exactly like the not adviced versions!

     But please read also the following:

     Normally all packages should work correct with ECB and it´s adviced functions but if there occur problems with a package cause of some of these adviced functions ECB offers the following fall-back solution:

      1. Deactivate in ecb-advice-window-functions all the adviced-functions which make problems with other packages.

      2. For every of the adviceable functions <adv-func> ECB offers a interactively function named ``ecb-<adv-func>'' which does exactly the same as the adviced version of <adv-func>. Use ``ecb-<adv-func>'' instead the original one to get the proper ECB behavior even if the function is not adviced anymore.

      3. You can bind in ecb-activate-hook the standard-shortcut of <adv-func> to ``ecb-<adv-func>'' and rebind it in ecb-deactivate-hook to <adv-func>.

      4. Now you have the best of both worlds: The problematic package works and you have the ECB-behavior of <adv-func> as if it would be adviced.

     Here is an example: Suppose you must deactivating the advice for switch-to-buffer-other-window. Then you deactivate this function with this option and you can use ecb-switch-to-buffer-other-window instead. Bind the shortcut you normally use for switch-to-buffer-other-window to ecb-switch-to-buffer-other-window (use ecb-activate-hook for this) and rebind it to the original function in the ecb-deactivate-hook.

 -- User Option: ecb-compile-window-enlarge-by-select
     The compile-window is auto. enlarged after selecting it. If not nil then selecting the ecb-compile-window auto. enlarges it and deselecting (means selecting another window after point was in ecb-compile-window) auto. shrinks it. Enlarging and shrinking the ecb-compile-window is done with ecb-toggle-enlarged-compilation-window. See also the documentation of this function!

 -- User Option: ecb-compile-window-height
     If you want a compilation window shown at the bottom of the ECB-layout then set here the height of it (Default is a height of 5). If you redraw the current layout with ecb-redraw-layout then the compilation window (if any) has the heigth you set here. If the number is less than 1.0 the height is a fraction of the frame height.

     If you do not set a durable compilation window then doing a compilation splits temporally the edit window vertically if the edit window is not splitted already or uses the ``other'' edit window temporally for comilation output if the edit window is already splitted. This is the recommended value for this option!

     Beware: If you set a durable compilation window then ECB can not guarantee always behaving like a standard Emacs concerning displaying temp-buffers and compilation-buffers. It should work in most cases but maybe not in all. Just try it out.

     See also the option ecb-compile-window-temporally-enlarge and also the function ecb-toggle-enlarged-compilation-window!

     See Temp- and compile-buffers.

     Regardless of the settings you define here: If you have destroyed or changed the ECB-screen-layout by any action you can always go back to this layout with ecb-redraw-layout

 -- User Option: ecb-compile-window-temporally-enlarge
     Let Emacs temporally enlarge the compile-window of the ECB-layout.

     This option has only an effect if ecb-compile-window-height is not nil!

     The following values are possible:

       - after-compilation: After finishing the compilation-output and during jumping to the errors ECB let temporally enlarge all compilation-buffers in ecb-compile-window (e.g. compile- and grep-buffers) to compilation-window-height. But be aware this setting is currently not meaningful for temporary buffers like help-buffers because these buffers currently enlarge always to temp-buffer-max-height.

       - after-selection: Selecting the ecb-compile-window auto. enlarges it and deselecting (means leaving ecb-compile-window) auto. shrinks it. Enlarging and shrinking the ecb-compile-window is done with ecb-toggle-enlarged-compilation-window. See also the documentation of this function! This is possible for all buffers in ecb-compile-window not only for compilation-buffers!

       - both: The combination of 'after-compilation and 'after-selection.

       - nil: ECB tries to fix always the height of the ecb-compile-window at the value of ecb-compile-window-height. But for all temporary buffers (e.g. help-buffers) this is currently not possible.

     To restore the ECB-layout after such a buffer-enlarge just call ecb-toggle-enlarged-compilation-window or ecb-redraw-layout.

 -- User Option: ecb-hide-ecb-windows-hook
     Hooks run after the ECB windows have been hidden either by ecb-toggle-ecb-windows or ecb-hide-ecb-windows.

 -- User Option: ecb-layout-always-operate-in-edit-window
     Adviced window functions work always in the edit-window. If we are in an ECB special buffer (methods, directories, etc), and any of the adviced windowing functions is called (see ecb-advice-window-functions), we will select the ecb-edit-window first. This is useful if you have any functions that use such functions and you don't want them to just error with a method complaining that the current buffer can not be split, or something similar.

     Because this may not be desirable in all situations and all adviced functions this can be enabled separately for every advisable function (see also ecb-advice-window-functions). If the symbol of an adviced function is contained in the value of this option, then the edit-window is first selected otherwise either an error is reported or some other special reaction; see the documentation of the adviced functions for this.

     For other-window and other-window-for-scrolling this makes no sense, therefore you can not enable this for both of them.

     Per default this is enabled for delete-window, delete-other-windows, switch-to-buffer and switch-to-buffer-other-window.

 -- User Option: ecb-layout-nr
     Define the window layout of ECB. A positive integer which sets the general layout. Currently there are 17 predefined layouts with index from 0 to 16. You can savely try out any of them by changing this value and saving it only for the current session. If you are sure which layout you want you can save it for future sessions. To get a picture of the layout for index <index> call C-h f ecb-layout-function-<index>, e.g. ecb-layout-function-9.

     Currently available layouts (see the doc-string for a picture ot the layout):

     ecb-layout-function-0 ecb-layout-function-1 ecb-layout-function-2 ecb-layout-function-3 ecb-layout-function-4 ecb-layout-function-5 ecb-layout-function-6 ecb-layout-function-7 ecb-layout-function-8 ecb-layout-function-9 ecb-layout-function-10 ecb-layout-function-11 ecb-layout-function-12 ecb-layout-function-13 ecb-layout-function-14 ecb-layout-function-15 ecb-layout-function-16

     Regardless of the settings you define here: If you have destroyed or changed the ECB-screen-layout by any action you can always go back to this layout with ecb-redraw-layout

 -- User Option: ecb-layout-switch-to-compilation-window
     Switch-to-buffer...-functions switch to ecb-compile-window. If the buffer argument of switch-to-buffer or switch-to-buffer-other-window is an compilation buffer as defined with ecb-compilation-buffer-p we will select the ecb-compile-window first. This is useful if you always want your compilation buffers within the compilation window and now within the edit window.

     Note the difference between ecb-layout-always-operate-in-edit-window and this option: If a switch-to-buffer...-function is contained in the former one, then we always jump first into the edit-window regardless of the destination buffer. If also contained in this option then ECB checks the destination buffer and then selects the ecb-compile-window if it is a compilation-buffer in the meaning of ecb-compilation-buffer-p!

     Per default this is only enabled for switch-to-buffer. We provide the option for switch-to-buffer-other-window too but the assumption is that when a user asks for a buffer in another window it should always be presented in another window.

 -- User Option: ecb-layout-window-sizes
     Specifies the sizes of the ECB windows for each layout. The easiest way to change this variable is to change the window sizes by dragging the window borders using the mouse and then store the window sizes by calling the ecb-store-window-sizes function. Next time the layout is redrawn the values stored in this option will be used.

     But be aware: These values are only suitable for the frame-size the ecb-frame had at the time you store the values by calling ecb-store-window-sizes. Therefore ensure always before calling ecb-store-window-sizes that the ecb-frame has the size it has normally during your work with ECB!.

 -- User Option: ecb-new-ecb-frame
     Create a new frame at activation time of ECB.

 -- User Option: ecb-other-window-jump-behavior
     Which windows of ECB should be accessible by the ECB-adviced function other-window, an intelligent replacement for the Emacs standard version of other-window. The following settings are possible:

       - all: ECB will cycle through all windows of ECB, means it behaves like the original other-window.

       - only-edit: ECB will only cycle through the (max. 2) edit-windows of ECB.

       - edit-and-compile: Like 'only-edit plus the compile window if any.

 -- User Option: ecb-redraw-layout-quickly
     If non-nil, we will attempt to redraw the layout quickly. Please read also carefully the documentation of ecb-redraw-layout.

 -- User Option: ecb-select-edit-window-on-redraw
     Select the first edit window on ecb-redraw-layout.

 -- User Option: ecb-show-ecb-windows-hook
     Hooks run after the ECB windows have been shown either by ecb-toggle-ecb-windows or ecb-show-ecb-windows.

 -- User Option: ecb-split-edit-window
     Sets how and if the edit window should be splitted. But be aware: This option determines only if the edit-window should be splitted at start-time of ECB.

 -- User Option: ecb-toggle-layout-sequence
     Toggle sequence for layout toggling with ecb-toggle-layout. Every element of this list has to be a valid layout-number (see option ecb-layout-nr).

     You can add here as many layouts as you want but to use this option most effective you should not add more than 2 or 3 layouts so every layout can be accessed very fast by toggling with ecb-toggle-layout. It is also senseful to add layouts which have the same principal outline, i.e. all their tree-buffers are on the same side of the frame and the tree-buffer-''column'' (or -''row'') has identical size for the layouts.

     Recommended values are for example:

       - (11 16), toggles between methods and directories/history

       - (11 15), toggles between methods and directories

       - (11 14), toggles between methods and history

       - (11 14 15), toggles between methods, history and directories

     This option makes only sense if the value is a list with more than 1 element!

 -- User Option: ecb-windows-height
     The height of the ECB windows in lines when they are placed above or below the edit window. If the number is less than 1.0 the width is a fraction of the frame height.

 -- User Option: ecb-windows-width
     The width of the ECB windows in columns when they are placed to the left or right of the edit window. If the number is less than 1.0 the width is a fraction of the frame width.

Group ecb-face-options
----------------------

This group contains the following options:

 -- User Option: ecb-directories-general-face
     Basic face for the ECB directories buffer. It´s recommended to define here the font-family, the font-size, the basic color etc.

 -- User Option: ecb-directory-face
     Define face used for highlighting current directory in the directories buffer.

 -- User Option: ecb-history-face
     Define face used for highlighting current history-entry in the history buffer.

 -- User Option: ecb-history-general-face
     Basic face for the ECB history buffer. It´s recommended to define here the font-family, the font-size, the basic color etc.

 -- User Option: ecb-method-face
     Define face used for highlighting current method, class or variable in the methods buffer.

 -- User Option: ecb-methods-general-face
     Basic face for the ECB methods buffer. It´s recommended to define here the font-family, the font-size, the basic color etc.

 -- User Option: ecb-source-face
     Define face used for highlighting current source in the sources buffer.

 -- User Option: ecb-source-in-directories-buffer-face
     Define a face for displaying sources in the directories buffer.

 -- User Option: ecb-sources-general-face
     Basic face for the ECB sources buffer. It´s recommended to define here the font-family, the font-size, the basic color etc.

 -- User Option: ecb-token-header-face
     Define face used for highlighting the token header after jumping to it by clicking onto a node in the methods buffer.

Group ecb-faces
---------------

This group contains the following faces:

ecb-bucket-token-face:
     Face which can be used for displaying bucket tokens in the methods buffer. See also `ecb-bucket-token-display'.

ecb-default-general-face:
     Basic face for all ECB tree-buffers. It's recommended to define here the font-family, the font-size, the basic color etc.

     In GNU Emacs 21.X all faces (even the face ecb-default-highlight-face) used in the ECB tree-buffers inherit from this face. Therefore the default attributes like font etc. of a face used in a tree-buffer can be very easily changed with face ecb-default-general-face.

     With XEmacs and GNU Emacs 20.X there is no inheritance-feature but the options ecb-directories-general-face, ecb-sources-general-face, ecb-methods-general-face and ecb-history-general-face offer the choice to use the face ecb-default-general-face so also with XEmacs and GNU Emacs 20.X the basic face-settings can be easily changed just by customizing the face ecb-default-general-face!

ecb-default-highlight-face:
     Define basic face for highlighting the selected node in an ECB tree-buffer.

     In GNU Emacs 21.X all highlighting faces in the ECB tree-buffers inherit from this face. Therefore the default attributes like font etc. of a face used in a tree-buffer for highlighting the current token can be very easily changed with face ecb-default-highlight-face.

     With XEmacs and GNU Emacs 20.X there is no inheritance-feature but the options ecb-directory-face, ecb-source-face, ecb-method-face and ecb-history-face offer the choice to use the face ecb-default-highlight-face so also with XEmacs and GNU Emacs 20.X the basic face-settings can be easily changed just by customizing the face ecb-default-highlight-face!

ecb-directories-general-face:
     Basic face for the ECB directories buffer. It´s recommended to define here the font-family, the font-size, the basic color etc.

ecb-directory-face:
     Define face used for highlighting current directory in the directories buffer.

ecb-history-face:
     Define face used for highlighting current history-entry in the history buffer.

ecb-history-general-face:
     Basic face for the ECB history buffer. It´s recommended to define here the font-family, the font-size, the basic color etc.

ecb-method-face:
     Define face used for highlighting current method, class or variable in the methods buffer.

ecb-methods-general-face:
     Basic face for the ECB methods buffer. It´s recommended to define here the font-family, the font-size, the basic color etc.

ecb-source-face:
     Define face used for highlighting current source in the sources buffer.

ecb-source-in-directories-buffer-face:
     Define a face for displaying sources in the directories buffer.

ecb-sources-general-face:
     Basic face for the ECB sources buffer. It´s recommended to define here the font-family, the font-size, the basic color etc.

ecb-token-header-face:
     Define face used for highlighting the token header after jumping to it by clicking onto a node in the methods buffer.

ecb-type-token-class-face:
     Define face used with option ecb-type-token-display.

ecb-type-token-enum-face:
     Define face used with option ecb-type-token-display.

ecb-type-token-group-face:
     Define face used with option ecb-type-token-display.

ecb-type-token-interface-face:
     Define face used with option ecb-type-token-display.

ecb-type-token-struct-face:
     Define face used with option ecb-type-token-display.

ecb-type-token-typedef-face:
     Define face used with option ecb-type-token-display.

Just call customize-face <face-name> to customize these faces for your personal taste. Or customize the related option in the group ecb-face-options.

Group ecb-download
------------------

This group contains the following options:

 -- User Option: ecb-download-delete-archive
     Should the downloaded archive be deleted after successfull installation or after failure during the installation-process. Possible values are:

       - only-after-success: Archive is only deleted after successfull installation but not if a failure occurs during the installation process.

       - always: Archive is also deleted if an error occurs.

       - nil: Archive will never be deleted.

 -- User Option: ecb-download-url
     URL where downloadable ECB-versions are located. The ECB-archive-file (e.g. ecb-1.70.tar.gz) will be appended to this URL and ecb-download-ecb will try to download this archive.

     Note: Normally this URL should never change but who knows...

 -- User Option: ecb-download-version
     Which version of ECB should be downloaded by ecb-download-ecb. Valid values are either the string ``latest'' or a version number like ``1.70''. ECB creates automatically the correct URL for download, see ecb-download-ecb (see Interactive ECB commands).

Submitting a problem report
***************************

If you run into problems with ECB you can/should send a problem report to the ECB mailing list ecb-list@lists.sourceforge.net. ECB offers you a command which does all necessary for you to send a problem report. Just call ecb-submit-problem-report! Please read the documentation of this command, see Interactive ECB commands.

This command creates a problem-report buffer for you. After that you get a menu ``Mail'' (dependend on the mail-package used, the menu can have a different name) with commands to send the problem report. But for this the varibale mail-user-agent must be configured right for your system. If you can´t get working this mechanism you can simply copy the whole problem-report buffer after filling it out and sending it with your standard mail-client to ecb-list@lists.sourceforge.net!

Please read also the documentation of the option ecb-debug-mode and switch on the debug mode of ECB (also available in the Help-menu of ECB!) before submitting a problem-report!

Upgrading and downloading packages
**********************************

This chapter describes all aspects of upgrading to a newer version of ECB.

The first section describes how to download and install a new package from the web, where ``package'' means either ECB itself or the required libraries semantic and eieio.

After installing a new ECB-version ECB checks if the values of the customized ECB-options are still compatible. If not ECB does some smart things. This is the topic of the second section.

Downloading new versions of ECB and/or required packages
========================================================

ECB offers the possibility to upgrade to newer versions direct from the ECB-website. This can be done if the following requirements are satisfied:

 1. A connection to the web is available

 2. The tools ``wget'', ``tar'' and ``gzip'' are installed

     With unix-systems these tools are in the standard-distribution. If you are running any Microsoft Windows system then you need cygwin (cygwin is available at) http://cygwin.com/ which offers these tools too. On every system these tools must reside in the PATH environment-variable!

     If you are behind a firewall and you have to use a proxy you maybe need the following wget-configuration in your file ~/.wgetrc:

          # Define your proxies (where 8080 and 8081 are examples
          # for the portnumbers)
          http_proxy = http://your.proxy.com:8080
          ftp_proxy  = http://your.ftpproxy.com:8081

          # If you do not want to use proxy at all, set this to off.
          use_proxy = on

If these requirements are satisfied you can download and install both ECB itself and also the required versions of semantic and eieio:

  * Download a new ECB-version with ecb-download-ecb:

     A description for this command you will find in Interactive ECB commands. Check also the options of the customize-group 'ecb-download' (see ecb-download).

     ECB will try to download the file:

          <URL><PACKAGE>-<VERSION>.tar.gz

     where

     URL
          Value of the option ecb-download-url.

     PACKAGE
          The string ``ecb''

     VERSION
          Value of the option ecb-download-version.

  * Download and install of required packages:

     ECB checks at start-time if the required versions of semantic and eieio (see README) are installed and loaded into Emacs. If not you will be asked if you want auto. download and install them. If you confirm this and the download and install succeeds then you will get a message-buffer which tells you something like:

          ---------------------------------------------------------------
          Current state of the required packages semantic and eieio:

          - semantic 1.4:
            Installed in /usr/local/lib/site-lisp/semantic-1.4

          - eieio 0.17:
            Correct version already loaded!

          After adding the new directory to your load-path and then
          restarting Emacs the new package(s) can be activated.
          ---------------------------------------------------------------

     Note: By setting the option ecb-version-check to nil you can prevent ECB from checking correct versions of semantic and eieio, but it's strongly recommended not to do this!

Automatic upgrading of options
==============================

User interface for option-upgrading
-----------------------------------

There are two interactive commands (see Interactive ECB commands):

  - ecb-upgrade-options: Does all necessary beginning with a incompatibility-check for all options, upgrading/resetting incompatible options and ending with the display of all upgraded or reset options.

  - ecb-display-upgraded-options: Displays a temp. buffer with all upgraded or resetted ECB-options with their old and new values.

If the option ecb-auto-compatibility-check has a non-nil value (which is the default) then ECB does all this stuff automatically at startup. This is very recommended!

If you are interested in some background information, read Background information!

Background information
----------------------

Big packages like ECB will be enhanced and developed continously so sometimes a new version must be released. Such packages offer in general a lot of customizable options so probably some of these options change the type or are renamed because the old type and/or name of the option makes no sense in the new release.

Especially options which have changed the type of their value are now a problem for the user which want to upgrade to the latest ECB-version: If the user has saved a certain value for option X in its file .emacs but the type of this saved value doesn't match the new defined type in the defcustom-form after an ECB-upgrade then there can occur serious problems like ECB can not be started anymore or even Emacs can not be startet without errors.

Until now there was only one way to fix these problems: The user must manually edit his file .emacs and remove all entries for options which have now another type. After this and after restarting Emacs the new default-values of the type-changed options in the new ECB-release are active and the user can go on using Emacs and ECB. But this approach to fix the incompatible-option-problem has two serious drawbacks:

 1. The user must manually edit the customize-section in his file .emacs. This should normally not be done and if then only by old-handed Emacs-users.

 2. The customized value of the option X in the old-release (with the old type) is lost because after removing the related entry from the file .emacs the new default-value is active, so the user must re-customize the option X.

Ok, this is one half of the option-upgrade-problem but a new ECB-release can also rename a option from name X to name Y because the new name Y makes much more sense and/or is more mnemonic. If only the name has changed but not the type this is not a serious problem like above but also annoying because the customized value of the old-option X takes no effect in the new release but instead the default-value of the new-option Y is now active. But nevertheless this problem has the drawback number 2 (see above).

The last category of upgrade-problems is a renamed option which has also changed its type.

ECB has a solution for all these problems:

  * It checks all customized values of all ECB-optons if they are still type-compatible. If not then it tries to upgrade the old-value to the new value-type and if this is not possible then it resets the option to the new default value and store it via customize in the .emacs-file (or in any file which is used for customized options).

  * It offers a special constant ecb-upgradable-option-alist which allows the ECB-maintainers to define special transformings for renamed options so even the value of an old-option X can be savely transformed to the new-option Y and the old setting is not lost.

All these checks and transformings are done at beginning of activating ECB - if the option ecb-auto-compatibility-check is not nil. If ECB has recognized incompatible or renamed options it does its upgrading/reseting-job so all ECB-options have correct types so ECB can start correct. After ECB is started it displays a list of all upgraded or resetted option with their old and new values.

Tips and tricks
***************

This chapter contains some tips and tricks how to deal best with some situations.

Changing faces in the ECB tree-buffers
======================================

There are two basic faces:

  * ecb-default-general-face:

     Basic face for displaying an ECB-tree-buffer.

  * ecb-default-highlight-face: Basic face for highlighting the current node in an ECB-tree-buffer.

With this faces you can change the basic attributes easily and fast for ALL ECB-tree-buffers. But you are also able to display each ECB-tree-buffer with different faces. For further details see the doc-strings of the faces ecb-default-general-face and ecb-default-highlight-face (just call customize-face to see the doc-strings). The options of the group 'ecb-face-options' are also interesting.

Working with small screens
==========================

If your screen is very small so you need every sqare-centimeter for displaying the buffer which you want to edit, ECB offers you a special layouts, where only the ECB-methods buffer is displayed on top or on left-side. Here comes what you should/can do to work best with ECB in such a situation:

  * First customize your ECB:

      1. Customize ecb-layout-nr to layout nr. 10 (on top) or nr. 11 (on left-side)

      2. Ensure that ecb-compile-window-height is nil.

      3. Optional: Ajust the ecb-windows-height resp. ecb-windows-width.

      4. Save your changes.

  * To edit your buffers: Call ecb-toggle-ecb-windows (also available via the menu ``ECB'' and by C-c . w) or ecb-hide-ecb-windows to hide the ECB-method buffer so you get all the place of your screen for editing.

  * To browse and select functions: Call ecb-toggle-ecb-windows or ecb-show-ecb-windows to make the ECB-method buffer visible if not already. If you want select a method/variable with the keyboard instead with the mouse you should read the section Using the keyboard in this online help!

The possibility of hiding temporally the ECB windows like described above is also useful for all the other layouts.

Simulating speedbar without an extra frame
==========================================

You can simulate a speedbar-like layout within ONE frame by doing the following:

 1. Customize ecb-layout-nr to layout nr. 11, 14, 15 or 16 dependend to what you like.

 2. Optional: Ensure that ecb-compile-window-height is nil.

 3. Optional: Ajust the ecb-windows-width.

 4. Optional: Customize ecb-toggle-layout-sequence and toggle very fast between several layouts by ecb-toggle-layout. See the doc-strings!

 5. Optional: Customize ecb-show-sources-in-directories-buffer to not nil if the choosen layout (see 1. and 4.) contains a directories-tree-buffer.

 6. Save your changes.

Integrating speedbar in the ECB-frame
=====================================

This feature will be first available in future versions of ECB.

Optimize scrolling in the edit-window
=====================================

Emacs 20.X seems to slow down scrolling if there is a horizontal split in the frame and/or a lot of overlays in the buffer which is scrolled. This is independend of ECB! But because almost all layouts of ECB uses horizontal splits of the frame and because ECB is based on semantic which uses overlays intensively there can be poor scrolling performance in large buffers, especially with java-buffers in jde-mode.

This scrolling performance can be increased a lot if the options scroll-conservatively and scroll-step are set appropriatelly: The former one should have a value of 0 during ECB is active and the latter one a value of either 0 or > 1 (the exact value depends on the power of your machine).

As far as we know this is not a problem of Emacs 21.X or XEmacs. With these versions of Emacs there should be no scrolling problem even with scroll-step has value 1.

Working with large directories
==============================

If ecb-source-path contains directories with many files and subdirs, especially if these directories are mounted net-drives (``many'' means here something > 1000, dependend on the speed of the net-connection and the machine), actualizing the sources- and/or directories- buffer of ECB (if displayed in current layout!) can slow down dramatically. If this is a problem the contents of certain directories can be cached which increases the speed a lot. See ecb-cache-directory-contents.

Optimal using of eshell in ECB
==============================

Documentation currently not available.

Entry points for elisp programmers
**********************************

This chapter describes how ECB can be used/programmed/driven by an elisp-program. This contains:

Variables for elisp-programs
============================

Variables an elisp-program can use:

  * ecb-source-path-functions

Look at the documentation of these variables to get a description.

Available hooks of ECB
======================

The following hooks are available:

  * ecb-activate-before-new-frame-created-hook

  * ecb-activate-before-layout-draw-hook

  * ecb-activate-hook

  * ecb-deactivate-hook

  * ecb-show-ecb-windows-hook

  * ecb-hide-ecb-windows-hook

  * ecb-current-buffer-sync-hook

Look at the documentation of these hooks to get a description.

The library tree-buffer.el
==========================

The library tree-buffer.el is ECB independent and can be used for other applications too. But such an application is not allowed to use any of the variables of tree-buffer.el especially not the variable tree-buffers!

tree-buffers: Only for internal use. It contains all tree-buffers of current Emacs-instance, means all tree-buffers of all applications which uses currently tree-buffers. Every application must store its own collection of tree-buffers in an own variable! For example: ECB stores its tree-buffer set in ecb-tree-buffers!

An application may only use the methods tree-buffer.el provides but no internal variables!

How to deal with the adviced window-functions
=============================================

ECB offers for packages which work during activated ECB three macros for easy temporally (I.e. regardless of the settings in ecb-advice-window-functions!) using all original-functions, all adviced functions or only some adviced functions:

  - ecb-with-original-functions

  - ecb-with-adviced-functions

  - ecb-with-some-adviced-functions

For a detailed explanation of each macro read the documentation with describe-function!

How to program new layouts
==========================

Documentation will be added in future!

Known conflicts and bugs of ECB
*******************************

This chapter describes all already known conflicts with other packages and also the known (and currently unfixed) bugs of ECB. If possible then a practicable solution or workaround is described.

Known conflicts with other packages
===================================

Here is a list of known conflicts of ECB with other packages and helpful solutions/hints/workarounds:

Package VC (Version Control)
----------------------------

The variable vc-delete-logbuf-window must be set to nil during active ECB. This can be done with the hooks mentioned in Elisp programming.

Package follow-mouse.el
-----------------------

The following is only relevant for Emacs 20.X!

ECB works very well with follow-mouse if follow-mouse is turned on BEFORE ECB is activated (e.g. within the ecb-activate-hook). But if you activate follow-mouse first after ECB is already activated, then the follow-mouse stuff prevents the complete node-name to be displayed in the echo-area if mouse moves over it. Because ECB has a much more intelligent mouse tracking mechanism than follow-mouse the follow-mouse stuff profit from ECB and works even better and saver as without activated ECB!

Package avoid.el
----------------

With GNU Emacs 20.X ECB must deactivate mouse-avoidance-mode if the option ecb-show-node-info-in-minibuffer activates for at least one ECB tree-buffer 'if-too-long or 'always. This is done automatically but only as long ECB is activated.

Package calendar.el
-------------------

With activated ECB calendar does not shrink it´s window to the small size but splits the window equally. But if you add this to your .emacs it works:

     (add-hook 'initial-calendar-window-hook
               (function (lambda ()
                           (when (and ecb-minor-mode
                                      (ecb-point-in-edit-window))
                             ;; if no horizontal split then nothing
                             ;; special to do
                             (or (= (frame-width) (window-width))
                                 (shrink-window (- (window-height) 9))))
                          )))

Package calculator.el
---------------------

If the edit-window is already splitted then calling calculator uses the whole ``other'' edit-window for the calculator. With an unsplitted edit-window the calculator window has it´s normal size of about 2 lines. Therefore it´s recommended to set calculator-electric-mode during ECB activation to not nil so calculator uses always the echo-area instead of creating a new small window!

Known bugs
==========

This section describes all currently known bugs of ECB. The maintainers of ECB try to fix these bugs as soon as possible.

Command Index
*************

This index contains all user commands of ECB:

Option Index
************

This index contains all customizable options of ECB: