How do I hotkey directly to File Search tab in Eclipse

You can just define a key binding that opens the file search:

1. Go to Preferences > General > Keys
2. Type "file search" in the search box. (If there are no results, and you have a really old Eclipse version, select the Include Unbound Commands check box.)
3. Put the caret into the Binding text box and press the key combination you want to use:

You can either re-use the CTRL+H binding (delete the other binding in that case) or define another one (e.g. CTRL+SHIFT+H). To delete the other binding search for "Open Search Dialog" and click on Unbind Command.

Other solution: You could press CTRL+3 in your editor, type in "file s", press Enter. The next time you press CTRL+3 "File Search" is at the top.

Another option is to open the search dialog (Ctrl+H) then click customize and hide java and task search tabs, next time you do Ctrl+H, file search will be the only one showing, thus it will be selected by default

I've run into this problem before, too.

I tried following the advice in the question response given by @Martin to rebind Ctrl+H to "File Search" in Window | Preferences | General | Keys, but for some reason, I don't have a "File Search" entry in the Command column. (I'm running Eclipse 3.3 currently; maybe the "File Search" entry was added in a subsequent release?)

Update: As Martin pointed out in a comment on this answer, I didn't have the "Include unbound commands" checkbox checked in the Preferences | Keys dialog, which is why "File Search" wasn't showing up for me. I now have Ctrl+H bound to "File Search", as Martin suggested in his answer on this page, and it works great. Thanks Martin!

I ended up working around the original problem by bringing up the Search dialog with Ctrl+H, then clicking the Customize button on the dialog, which brings up a "Search Page Selection" dialog which allows you to hide or show tabs on the Search dialog. I hid the tabs other than "File Search," which causes "File Search" to be activated by default on future uses of Ctrl+H.

As far as I know, the search window tab depend of the open file you're on when calling the search function. So, for example if your on a web.xml file, it will open the "plug-in search" instead of the "java-search".

Edit: there is a way to force the default open tab, by assigning a shortcut to the "File Search" action in the "Keys" preference panel.

I would like to provide a workaround here: you can 'remember last used page' to avoid opening it over and over again.