Description Nobody - feel free to take it 2007-10-17 15:18:16 EDT

Currently when we Ctrl+Click on an interface method (or an interface type itself) we jump to the declaration of that interface. More often what we are trying to do is go to a particular implementation of that method. I am proposing we change the behaviour of org.eclipse.jdt.ui.actions.OpenAction (or write a new action) to allow this. 

This feature is really just a different way of presenting (some of) the information provided by the Type Hierarchy view but i think its quicker and cleaner than opening the "Type Hierarchy" view and checking which classes implement the method you're looking for, override, subclass, etc

Attached is a patch which is a rough demo of the desired behaviour. Now when "clicking through" an interface method (or the interface itself) we can choose which implementation to jump to. Currently the patch uses a dialog for presentation but i would prefer to see a popup appear at the point where the mouse tip is.

This idea could be extended to provide other information such as:
1. presenting all overriden implementations of non-interface methods.
2. presenting all subclasses of a given class/interface.

An example popup menu for clicking on an interface might look like this:

| Jump to source  |
| Implemented by | > (submenu with impls)
| Extended by       | > (submenu with extensions)
 
Thoughts for consideration, amongst others, would be whether to move this to a new key combination and presentation of this information.