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When refactoring or restructuring code files there are occasions where I have a clear view in my mind of the contents/purpose of a method or code block but I want to move it around between files or up/down within a file.

In a word processor when moving paragraphs you can zoom out and rely on the shape/context of paragraphs (methods) as you don't need to clearly be able to read each one. I find zooming out a little to get a good view of my text very useful in these situations.

My Question: Do any IDEs / IDE plugins (preferably cross-platform and supporting Java) allow you to zoom in and out when looking at text?

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5 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

Netbeans

and

IntelliJ IDEA

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Netbeans? Please tell how!! – Mchl Jul 21 '11 at 21:38
I found someone using it, but evidently it's only in dev builds. The current target release is version 7.1, which the current stable as of today is 7.0 on the site. Here's the feature request in Bugzilla for this feature:netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=41807 – Ryan Hayes Jul 22 '11 at 2:23
Sweet, thanks. I don't think I'll move to dev builds for that feature alone, but it's nce to know it's coming. +1 – Mchl Jul 22 '11 at 10:49
up vote 3 down vote

Nodepad++ does it also.

JetBrains IDEs also do it.

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up vote -2 down vote

This is usually a windows manager functionnality. MacOS and most linux disro does support it. I'm pretty sure you have tools to do that on windows (sorry, I'm not using it anymore for ages).

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Yeah, sure, insightfull comments about downvotes . . . – deadalnix Jul 21 '11 at 21:12
up vote 1 down vote

I hate to say this, but if you use the poor man's IDE (command line with a good text editor like emacs, vi(m) or even nano), you get this feature for free. Most virtual terminals can change the font size on-the-fly (gnome-terminal conveniently provides Ctrl-Shift-Plus and Ctrl-Shift-Minus, much like a web browser), and editors automatically adapt to the new size.

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up vote 4 down vote

Sure - Visual Studio does. Just hold down Ctrl and use the scroll wheel on the mouse. As for others I would say they offer similar functionality.

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1  
Thanks, I was going crazy wondering why I couldn't find this feature. I mainly use Eclipse/Netbeans and I tried ctrl-scroll in both of these to no effect. – Ben Page Jul 21 '11 at 13:45
3  
I didn't know VS supported Java. – FrustratedWithFormsDesigner Jul 21 '11 at 14:01

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