In the editor window in IntelliJ IDEA, I can't type #, which should be done by pressing AltGr + Q with my keyboard. If I press that sequence of buttons, nothing happens at all. It doesn't open any menu option nor window nor runs any operation.
This is true for every project I work with this IDE.
I don't have this problem in any other text field of any other program. I don't have any plug-in installed. I don't see this problem in any other IntelliJ IDEA from any other user, whether I know in person or by Internet. I'm not using any shortcut that uses Ctrl + AltGr + Q (it doesn't even accept shortcuts that start with AltGr or even AltGr for that matter), so that can't be the problem.
I can type Chinese characters so I don't think it's a character encoding thing nor a problem with the keyboard. I can paste the character, though.
What can be the reason for this, and how can I type #?
I'm using IntelliJ IDEA on my Mac to work on a project, and I keep on coming across an issue where I can't type. Occasionally when I switch to another application and then switch back to IntelliJ I can't type anything, and the cursor doesn't appear on text when I click on things. Does anyone know what causes this? After 1-2 minutes it goes back to normal, but it's started happening more frequently and it's pretty frustrating to not be able to type and have no way to fix it.
This is the version of IntelliJ I'm using:
IntelliJ IDEA 2016.1.3
Build #IC-145.1617, built on June 3, 2016
JRE: 1.8.0_76-release-b198 x86_64
JVM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM by JetBrains s.r.o
Turn off Vim Emulator from Tools in the IntelliJ, like this picture:
I am encountering this issue aswell, ...
MAC os Mojave 10.14.2, Inteliij Community 2018.3.5
Aside from restarting / clearing caches, I found that cmd + leftShift + F still opens the search window, and all my keystrokes appeared in the searchbox!
After the searchshortcut, I was able to close the searchbox and work again!
The answer here helped me https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/206152119-Can-t-type-in-editor-window
Quoting the author of the answer:
I had the same problem. It goes away after I click the icon at top of
the scroll bar. it happens frequently on windows 7/10, and
occasionally on mac. my colleagues said they have experienced it too
Have the same issue occasionally, can't type in any Intellij windows. My temporary/quick fix, is to:
Close any terminal windows in intellij
Use cmd+shift+f to pull up the search window.
Seems to fix it, for a while.
Closed IDEA, all IDEA projects! Even though in other IDEA windows I could type.
Removed .idea folder in the project I could not edit.
Restarted IDEA.
Then I was able to type!
Maybe you entered Vim emulator as said. Maybe only by mistake :).
Control-V is a frequently used shortcut. And Control-Alt_V is the shortcut to enable Vim mode so you can see the problem...
How to know in five seconds: type a ":" (colon) and if the cursor jump to end of the screen, that is vim. If so enter q to quit and then Control-Alt-V (on windows) to go back to IDEA standard mode.
vi is a powerful text editor since ever. But only if you pretend and know how to use it... There is even a warning on the IDEA install saying like "do not install unless you are familiar with Vim" in yellow bold text, iirc.
[Follows historic data, that you may find boring off-topic or interesting]
Today's editors opens the code in edit mode right away so you can start typing over existing code. Vim by the other hand opens the code in, let us say, browsing mode: there is a set of navigation keys to browse the code. Everything you type is supposed to be a command. When you want to edit you enter INSERT mode and then you can type new text. Only then.
Just for more historic data: vi navigation mode is great for studying code you do not know, using IDEA, since it does not change the text unless you tell it to, and some vi commands are clever.
One example:
"/" (forward slash) is one search command, and "z" is a smart scroll command so that:
/setCellFactory will search for the next match of "setCellFactory" and put the cursor there
Then if you type "z" the code will be positioned so that line is the first on screen. And if you type "." the line will be at the middle. And if you type "-" that line will be at the last position at the screen. And you can use these commands again and again. And new slash will go for the next match, like F3
This "z" thing is a feature I miss in Visual Studio, IDEA, Eclipse, Word, WordPad: these commands to scroll text AROUND a pattern... /pattern, z, z., z-. The alternative is the mouse wheel...
I am used to vi since the 80's and is the editor I still use today on Linux terminals so when this happened to me on IDEA I was lucky to remember and suspect of that on the first time.
Sorry if these details are boring
Ensure you haven't unintentionally enabled vim emulation. Go to IntelliJ Idea -> Preferences and select Plugins. Scroll down and look for the vim emulation plugin and if it's checked, then either uncheck it or uninstall it completely.
Ran into same issue with intelliJ 2017.1.2, but no VIM Plugin. However, I had just created an empty project with some .groovy files. I could edit the files in the groovy project, but not java projects.
Only way I could fix java projects, was blow-away workspace.xml files in each, then I could edit again. However, had to re-create tomcat configs, breakpoints, other IDE settings. etc.
I had a problem with entering characters when working with .story files. When I tried to type in any character, it appeared for a short while and immediately disappeared. The cause of the problem was jbehave plugin I was using. After uninstalling it and restarting IntelliJ everything was fine.
It seems to be because another window has the cursor and is not giving it back.
Check any open floated windows, click on them & then click back to your intellij instance
alternatively, if you have multiple intellij instances open the cursor could be there...
Go to the most recently opened IntelliJ instance
Check if the cursor has become stuck in that project's terminal window, or another window
no? check all other open IntelliJ instances
For me it happened because of vim
Om Mac, I solved it by navigating to File → Reload All from Disk.
Keyboard shortcut: ⌥ ⌘ Y
IntelliJ IDEA 2020.1.4
Try disabling plugins one at a time. It was the "BashSupport Pro" plugin that caused it for me. Disabled it and I could type again right away.
I read other comments saying some other plugins caused the issue as well.
Whenever I double click on words in IntelliJ, the editor highlights the word like I am expecting it to, and it also acts as if I am pressing the insert button to do Overtyping. If the word is selected and I move down via keypad, it starts to highlight everything from the end of the word and it is very infuriating. How can I disable this? I looked through the settings and I am not seeing anything that is related to double clicking and highlighted words.
I found a solution, there was a plugin that was installed along with the installation that is IdeaVim. After uninstalling that and I do not have the issue anymore
When searching for a String in Intellij's console, you have to type the word you are looking for in a special input. But as soon as you begin typing, intellij is beginning to parse the whole console log which can be huge (it can freeze the whole IDE), and it starts to look for the first letter typed.
So if you want to search for "WARN", it begins to look for "W" for no reason. Is there a way to have a manual "start search" in intellij console and to disable the "auto-search" on typing in search box? That way I would just type the whole word and then search for it in the log, as the word is more restrictive the search would not freeze intellij.
I found how to bypass auto-search, use a text editor (notepad++, scite...) then type in it what you want to look for. Copy it to the clipboard. Paste then in the search box instead of all characters in it (use ctrl+a to select all, then paste).
Intellij will take the paste event as an unique event (not a succession of many keyboard events).
I like to use my mouse as little as possible for health reasons. Almost all the common tasks in IntelliJ I can do via keyboard shortcuts, except for displaying the message of an error. How can I have a keyboard shortcut that will show the tooltip of the highlighted error?
For example, I have an error such as:
Then I hit [magic-keyboard-command] and I get:
In Eclipse this is possible by pressing F2. Is there an equivalent in IntelliJ?
The standard Error Description shortcut for JetBrains tools is Ctrl+F1 (Cmd+F1 on Mac).
I use F2 on the mac, it cycles round all the errors in a single file and displays the error information for each.
In addition, to find all project errors what I do is this:
cmd+2 - go to error list (this might be different for diff languages)
press enter key
make change to fix bug
back to step 1 (sometimes escape key will help also)