ECB stands for "Emacs Code Browser". While Emacs already has good editing
support for many modes, its browsing
support is somewhat lacking. That's where ECB comes in: it displays a number of informational windows that allow for easy source code navigation and overview.
The informational windows can contain:
- A directory tree,
- a list of source files in the current directory,
- a list of functions/classes/methods/... in the current file, (ECB uses the Semantic Bovinator, or Imenu, or etags, for getting this list so all languages supported by any of these tools are automatically supported by ECB too)
- a history of recently visited files,
- the Speedbar and
- output from compilation (the compilation
window) and other modes like help, grep etc. or whatever a user defines to be displayed in this window.
As an added bonus, ECB makes sure to keep these informational windows visible, even when you use C-x 1 and similar commands.
It goes without saying that you can configure the layout, ie which informational windows should be displayed where. ECB comes with a number of ready-made window layouts to choose from.
