IntelliJ productivity tips

18 Sep 2017

This post is based on a talk on IntelliJ productivity and contains some tips and tricks I found handy in my everyday work.

You may disagree with me or find these recommendations useless for yourself, but I and some of my teammates have found out these tips have made us more efficient when dealing with lots of code in a big project.

say “no!” to tabs – that’s it – disable them. Forever. IntellJ has many ways to navigate the project, just check them out: Cmd+E, Cmd+Alt+← and Cmd+Alt+→
stop using mouse – just as with navigation in open files, IntelliJ offers awesome code navigation: want to go to the method definition? Cmd+B, want to find a file or class or method? Shift, Shift or Ctrl+Shift+N or Ctrl+N, want to move around in Project Manager? Cmd+1 (and then Esc to switch between editor and Manager)
use IntelliJ’s code intelligence – if you forgot what params method takes, use Cmp+P, if you want to find variable or class or method usage – use Alt+F7, use the power of “Refactor -> Extract Constant/Field” function
use action finder popup – that one can save you lot of time when you do not remember where the function needed is located or what key shortcut to use – Cmd+Shift+A is your friend

WARNING: lots of video/gifs under the cut!

Summary

Open/hide tool window (Project, Structure, Version Control, etc.)

<div><kbd>Cmd+1</kbd> .. <kbd>Cmd+9</kbd></div>

<div>
    To go back to editor - just hit <kbd>Esc</kbd> <br />
    Project Tree: <br />
    <video preload autoplay loop muted>
        <source src="/images/intellij-performance-tips/cmd_1_esc.webm" />
        <source src="/images/intellij-performance-tips/cmd_1_esc.webp" />
    </video>
    <br />
    Search results:
    <br />
    <video preload autoplay loop muted>
        <source src="/images/intellij-performance-tips/cmd_3_esc.webm" />
        <source src="/images/intellij-performance-tips/cmd_3_esc.webp" />
    </video>
    <br />
    Version Control:
    <br />
    <video preload autoplay loop muted>
        <source src="/images/intellij-performance-tips/cmd_9_esc.webm" />
        <source src="/images/intellij-performance-tips/cmd_9_esc.webp" />
    </video>
</div>

Switch between open files

Cmd+E