Top 10 IntelliJ IDEA Features
Let see some of the cool features of IntelliJ IDEA IDE which can make life somewhat easy for developers.
1. Always Select Opened File
Selecting “Always Select Opened File” automatically shows current file in the file tree on the left side. Handy especially in large projects.
2. Column Selection Mode
This is one of the cool thing when doing boring changes in SQL, JSON and similar files.
3. Evaluating Expressions
IntelliJ debug capabilities are great. Evaluate Expression lets you execute a piece of code in the context of current breakpoint.
4. Var suffix
Declare var, not war.
Another cool new feature. The suffix declares a variable after coding its value. .var after declaration completes it all.
5. Live Templates
IntelliJ comes with a bunch of built-in templates saving you from typing common boring code.
6. Custom Live Templates
This is really a helpful feature, you can create your custom live templates specific to your framework or domain and save from the cost of writing every time.
7. Validate Regex
IntelliJ makes regex validation even easier. Given a regex, enterOption + Enter and select Check RegExp. Enter test strings and IntelliJ would automatically test whether the sample string is a match or not. Neat right.
8. Inject Language or reference
IntelliJ allows us to insert the context of a particular language and allows to work with it within another file. Let’s assume you want to store JSON string inside a Java file.
You can start with a simple string variable. Press Option + Enter and select Inject language or reference. select the file type. Let’s say JSON.
Now that we have provided the context, You can again press Option + Enter and then select Edit JSON fragment . This opens up a new window where you can create and edit JSON freely and the corresponding concatenated string is magically inserted.
9. Review PRs in IDE :)
Intellij has now a feature that let us review the code and leave comments directly from IDE, I like that.
10. Productivity Guide
This feature is the home for all the fun. You can see how much effort you would save by going to productivity guide and checking out the feature usages, and ones you are yet to use.
I will be adding on more features which I think will be really useful to be shared. Feel free to comment if you know any cool features of IntelliJ that can help others.
Pro-tip : You don’t need to remember every hotkeys, all you need to remember from the beginning is the shortcuts to open the Actions Control dialog ( Ctrl + Shift + A).
