Mac OS Keyboard Shortcuts

See Also

In most cases, working with the IDE on the Mac is no different from working on other operating systems. Two significant differences do exist, however. Firstly, the Options window on the Mac is found under NetBeans > Preferences, while the About box is under NetBeans > About.

Secondly, some keyboard shortcuts on the Mac are different. Below are tables displaying the main keyboard shortcuts and how to use them on the Mac. For a complete list of keyboard shortcuts, including those on the Mac, see the complete keyboard shortcut list, which is found here:

Scrolling and Selecting

Keys Action
Cmd-[ Moves the insertion point to the highlighted matching bracket. Note that this shortcut only works when the insertion point is located immediately after the opening bracket.
Cmd-Shift-[ Selects the block between a pair of brackets. Note that this shortcut only works when the insertion point is located immediately after either the opening or closing bracket.
Ctrl-G Jumps to any specified line.
Cmd-A Selects all text in the file.

Code Folding

Keys Action
Cmd-Minus (-) Collapses the block of code in which the insertion point is currently located.
Cmd-Plus (+) Expands the block of code which is adjacent to the insertion point.
Cmd-Shift-Minus (-) Collapses all blocks of code in the current file.
Cmd-Shift-Plus (+) Expands all blocks of code in the current file.

Cutting, Copying, Pasting, and Deleting Text

Keys Action
Cmd-Z Undo. Reverses a series of editor actions one at a time (excluding Save).
Cmd-Y Redo. Reverses a series of Undo commands one at a time.
Cmd-X Cut. Deletes the current selection and places it on the clipboard.
Cmd-C Copy. Copies the current selection to the clipboard.
Cmd-V Paste. Pastes the contents of the clipbard at the insert point.
Backspace Delete. Deletes the current selection.
Cmd-E Deletes the current line.
Cmd-K Copies the word preceding the insertion point and then pastes it after the insertion point (the insertion point must be in the whitespace preceeding or following a word). Press K multiple times to cycle through preceding words in succession.
Cmd-Shift-K Copies the word following the insertion point and pastes it at the insertion point (the insertion point must be located in the whitespace preceeding or following a word.) Press L multiple times to cycle through consecutive following words.

Searching for Text

Keys Action
Cmd-G Selects the next occurrence of the word found during the search.
Cmd-Shift-G Selects the previous occurrence of the word found during the search.
Cmd-F Opens the Find box at bottom of editor.
Cmd-R Opens the Find and Replace dialog box.

Setting Tabs

Keys Action
Tab Shifts all text to the right of the insertion point one tab stop to the right.
Cmd-Right arrow Shifts text in the line containing the insertion point to the right one tab stop.
Cmd-Left arrow Shifts text in the line containing the insertion point to the left one tab stop.

Modifying Code

Keys Action
Ctrl-Spacebar Opens the Java code completion dialog box.
Shift-Enter Enters the text that is selected in the code completion box into your file.
Ctrl-I Opens the Insert Code pop-up menu where you can choose from code snippets you want the IDE to insert.
Ctrl-Shift-I Adds an import statement to the import section of the code when the cursor is over the class name to be imported.
Ctrl-K Goes to the previous entry in jump list.
Ctrl-Shift-K Goes to the next entry in jump list.
Ctrl-J then D A macro that selects the identifier under the caret. Then inserts debugging code on the previous line to print the value of that identifier.
Shift-Spacebar Adds a space without checking for abbreviations to expand.
Cmd-Shift-J Opens the Internationalize dialog box that you can use to insert an localized string at the insertion point.
Cmd-J Cycles through editor tabs.

Using Bookmarks

Keys Action
Cmd-Shift-M Sets or unsets a bookmark at the current line.
Cmd-Shift-Period/Comma Goes to the next/previous bookmark.
See Also
Setting Keyboard Shortcuts
Menu Shortcuts
Help Viewer Shortcuts
Window Navigation Shortcuts

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