Rectangular select in Eclipse editor as in any Microsoft tools

In Microsoft tools such as Word and Visual Studio, there is a feature to select text in a rectangle manner by pressing the Alt key while selecting. Is there anything like that in Eclipse?


Pressing Shift + Alt + A toggles Block or Column selection mode in Eclipse 3.5 or later.

Other than that you can try the 'Columns 4 Eclipse' Plug-in for Eclipse 3.3.1 here.


As another poster noted- the Android ADT blocks the use of Alt+Shift+A. An easy fix is to go to Window->Preferences->General->Keys and look for "Toggle Block Selection"

From there, you can assign your own hotkey that will not conflict with the Android tools. For example I tied it to Alt+A, which works just fine.

As others have said, this will not work in Eclipse 3.4 or earlier. I am using Eclipse 3.7.2, YMMV.