General preferences

This page (Window > Preferences > General) contains the general settings for the IDE. Each window in the IDE contains one or more perspectives. Perspectives contain views and editors and control what appears in certain menus and toolbars. More than one window can exist on the desktop at any given time.

You can change the following preferences on this page:

Option	Description	Default
Always run in background	Select this option to perform long-running operations in the background without blocking you from doing other work.	Not selected
Keep next/previous editor, view and perspectives dialog open	Select this option to let the editor and view cycle dialogs remain open once their activation key is let go. Typically, the dialog closes as soon as the key combination is released.	Not selected
Show Heap Status	Select this option to display an indicator showing information about the current Java heap usage.	Not selected
Open mode	You can select one of the following methods for opening resources: Double click Single-click on a resource to select it, and double-click on it to open it in an editor. Select on hover (Single click) Hovering the mouse cursor over a resource selects it, and clicking on it once opens it in an editor. Open when using arrow keys (Single click) Select a resource with the arrow keys to open it in an editor. Note: Depending on which view has focus, selecting and opening a resource may have different behavior.	Double-click