Monday, February 20, 2006
The top 10 Things i Love the most about IntelliJ IDEA (5.1)
Just like a carpenter needs a good saw and hammer, having a good IDE is paramount to being a productive developer. I recently upgraded from IDEA 4.5 to 5.1 and would like to tell you all how much I enjoy working with my new tool.
This is the top 10 features I use most, and that has the greatest impact on my workflow. The focus here is fast code editing, and does not take into consideration major other features like App server integration, code analysis etc.
Please feel free to comment on this entry with other nifty workflow tips !
- “Rename” (Shift+F6) with this key combo I can refactor the name of methods and members when I am about to use them. You usually discover that the name of a method is bad when you’re about to use it. Being able to rename it, without going to the declaration saves a lot of time. Bad names are a thing of the past.
- "Recent files" (Ctrl + E) this key combo displays a list of the last edited files. I Usually want to go back to one of the last three files I worked on.
- "Quick find class or file" (Ctrl-N and Ctrl-Shift-N). This feature really speeds up my workflow. Instead of using the tree-navigator to find a class, I can press ctrl+n, type in the name of a class. Matches are displayed as I type. This also works for other files using the ctrl+shift+n. In conjunction with the "recent files” I end up not using the mouse. In fact, when doing only coding with my laptop, I sometimes don't connect the mouse at all.
- “Delegate” (Ctrl+insert) this neat feature lets you expose the interface of a contained class. If you've been using the decorator design pattern/wrapper you understand the value of this neat feature.
- “Subversion Integration”. I was waiting for this. Setting up subversion was a pain in 4.5 involving copying of binaries to your windows directory. In 5.1 Subversion integration is integrated, and works very well. You can even use the IDEA file compare when you have subversion conflicts.
- Ctrl + mouse click. If I’m inside a configuration file (Struts-config.xml for example) and need to quickly go to the Action class specified in an action mapping. Hold the Ctrl key in, and the text representing the class name becomes clickable.
- "Reformat code" (Ctrl + Alt + L) I’m currently write code for a client not using the same coding standard I’m used to. Setting up intelliJ to meet their standard was very painless. I find myself pressing this key combo on reflex now.
- "Optimize imports" (Ctrl + Alt + O). Quickly removes redundant and unused class files form my imports.
- "Source health indicator" The Red/Green/Yellow light indicating the state of my code. Seeing the green light, I instantly know the file compiles.
- "Source problem tags" The Red/Green/Yellow bars indicating problems in my code. If I am editing at the bottom of my source file and my source indicator is yellow, I look for see some yellow bars at the “top” of my code, this usually means that some imports are now redundant and I press. Ctrl-Alt-O, and… Voila! The yellow bars disappear and the light is back to green. ¶ 1:40 AM
This is the top 10 features I use most, and that has the greatest impact on my workflow. The focus here is fast code editing, and does not take into consideration major other features like App server integration, code analysis etc.
Please feel free to comment on this entry with other nifty workflow tips !
- “Rename” (Shift+F6) with this key combo I can refactor the name of methods and members when I am about to use them. You usually discover that the name of a method is bad when you’re about to use it. Being able to rename it, without going to the declaration saves a lot of time. Bad names are a thing of the past.
- "Recent files" (Ctrl + E) this key combo displays a list of the last edited files. I Usually want to go back to one of the last three files I worked on.
- "Quick find class or file" (Ctrl-N and Ctrl-Shift-N). This feature really speeds up my workflow. Instead of using the tree-navigator to find a class, I can press ctrl+n, type in the name of a class. Matches are displayed as I type. This also works for other files using the ctrl+shift+n. In conjunction with the "recent files” I end up not using the mouse. In fact, when doing only coding with my laptop, I sometimes don't connect the mouse at all.
- “Delegate” (Ctrl+insert) this neat feature lets you expose the interface of a contained class. If you've been using the decorator design pattern/wrapper you understand the value of this neat feature.
- “Subversion Integration”. I was waiting for this. Setting up subversion was a pain in 4.5 involving copying of binaries to your windows directory. In 5.1 Subversion integration is integrated, and works very well. You can even use the IDEA file compare when you have subversion conflicts.
- Ctrl + mouse click. If I’m inside a configuration file (Struts-config.xml for example) and need to quickly go to the Action class specified in an action mapping. Hold the Ctrl key in, and the text representing the class name becomes clickable.
- "Reformat code" (Ctrl + Alt + L) I’m currently write code for a client not using the same coding standard I’m used to. Setting up intelliJ to meet their standard was very painless. I find myself pressing this key combo on reflex now.
- "Optimize imports" (Ctrl + Alt + O). Quickly removes redundant and unused class files form my imports.
- "Source health indicator" The Red/Green/Yellow light indicating the state of my code. Seeing the green light, I instantly know the file compiles.
- "Source problem tags" The Red/Green/Yellow bars indicating problems in my code. If I am editing at the bottom of my source file and my source indicator is yellow, I look for see some yellow bars at the “top” of my code, this usually means that some imports are now redundant and I press. Ctrl-Alt-O, and… Voila! The yellow bars disappear and the light is back to green. ¶ 1:40 AM
Comments:
<< Home
Rename refactoring is definitely the best thing since sliced bread. A two-key command is much handier than the eclipse 3-key one: Alt-Shift-R. I suppose you could change it though.
# posted by 
: 2:29 AM
: 2:29 AM
About automatic formatting, you can set the source control integration to reformat your code before commiting, so you don't even need to click the combo - IntelliJ will do it for you before every commit, so you'll never have a badly-formatted code in their repositories.
I hate the fact that they have made the CVS diff viewer a modal dialog. Atleast thats the way it is in 5.0 has that changed in 5.1?
# posted by : 3:48 AM
: 3:48 AM
The ctrl-n also works with camelcase. So if you have a class called MySupaDupaClass, you can press ctrl-n and type MSD, so it comes up with all classes using that camelcase :)
Post a Comment
# posted by : 7:05 AM
: 7:05 AM<< Home
