Every time I open a new project in IntelliJ IDEA, the first time I open a particular tool window, for example 'Maven Projects', it appears in 'pinned' mode and remains visible until either I close it, or I go to the view settings for the window (the little cog) and deselect "Pinned Mode". I don't want any of my tool windows to be pinned so this gets a little annoying.
Do you know of a way to change the default behaviour of new project / tool windows?
As far as IJ 2016.2 I don't know about a dedicated setting for this. However I used an approach which allows you to define a default layout for all projects. Although the window-pinning works, which is what this question is about, some may not be persisted, such as Group Modules setting in the maven tool-window.
Nonetheless, to configure the pinning, you need to do 2 simple things, which you can also see in the GIF below:
1) Manually go and unpin all desired windows
2) Open the Windows menu and select Store current layout as default
P.S. If you'll be using tool-windows that you've never opened before, or install new plugins which add their own tool-windows, just follow these steps again.
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.
I faced a very strange problem: in someday(I don't really know when) the shortcut
Ctrl+Alt+B stoped working. This shortcut is just Go To Implementation(s). I still can do it by Ctrl+Alt+Mouse1.
I opened settings, to check how is this shortcut configured - all looks fine for me. So I tried to remove Ctrl+Alt+B and add the same combination again.
In Enter Keyboard Shortcut window I have to press key's so the IDEA would be able to set this shortcut. But I cannot record these combination, I still can record Ctrl+B, Ctrl+Alt+Shift+B, Alt+B, but not the right combination.
I looked at idea log file, but there was nothing criminal.
I wonder if some other application catches this combination, but I doesn't know how to find this application.
PS. I run my Idea on win7
By the way you're describing it, I strongly believe that the problem is not related to the IDE itself but probably some other program listening for that same key combo in a global level.
Its common to lose some keybinding after installing new applications or drivers. For example, I've lost some key bindings in my IDE after installing drivers for Intel Integrated Graphics. The driver was "stealing" hotkeys like Ctrl + Alt + < arrow > used to rotate the screen.
Double check for newly installed or updated programs/drivers, and make sure that they don't have any shortcut that may be conflicting with your IDE.
Also, you might use Hotkey Commander to verify which program is handling your Ctrl+Alt+B.
I have just installed IntelliJ 9.0.2 on a machine running 64-bit Ubuntu 10.04.
How do I get another window to put on my second screen?
I would like to have both an editor and some tool windows on both screens.
All 'windows' inside of IntelliJ other than the code editor tabs have a "Float" option which pops open an independent window which you can drag to anywhere on your screen. This will allow you to manage your IDEA windows however you like.
IntelliJ also allow you to open multiple projects at once. When opening a project with one already opened, you are prompted as to wether you would like it in your current window or a "New Instance". If you choose new instance, it will open up a completely new IntelliJ with the other project in it. This will work for you if you have many projects you work on at once.
IntelliJ 14 and onwards you can select the settings cog and tick floating mode to detach menus, or drag editor tabs off the main window to detach them
If you're running on OSX you'll need to make sure it's not treating the screens as separate spaces, otherwise they'll snap back onto the same window as the main editor when switching between windows.
To do this untick Displays have separate Spaces in the Mission Control System Preferences.
IntelliJ 10 will have draggable & dockable editor tabs. A very nice feature. It's already present in the early access versions.
My first day using this IDE...
is there a way to configure the IDE to open files in the project by double click? It is rather painful having to drag files from the project overview into the editor window.
You can change the KeyMap.
Go to File->Settings and find the keymap section.
You will have to create a new KeyMap by clicking copy, and then look in the View section for "Jump to Source" and change/add the keymap you want.
However, as Bozhidar Batsov noted, double clicking may not always work so well. Whether it works may vary by OS and/or windowing system. I have no trouble with it in Mac OS X, but it doesn't seem to work well in openSUSE.
There are also other predefined keymaps that you can select from this settings screen. They're set up to resemble other IDEs, so you might find them helpful if you're transitioning from something else.
It is easy way to do in windows.
I found a great solution to this problem by Jelmer Kuperus over at Orange11.
Create an .Xresources file in your home directory. Add the following line:
*multiClickTime: 400
Jelmer explains that this setting changes the default double-click speed from 200ms to 400ms, effectively slowing it down. Save the file and then run:
xrdb ~/.Xresources
The effect is immediate, no need to logout or reboot. Double-click in Intellij works as expected. I did try changing the mouse double-click speed in System Settings first before trying this out to see if that made a difference but it did not.
I am using Ubuntu 11.04, Intellij 10.5.2, and Sun JDK 1.6.0_26. YMMV
Use F4 to open quickly the selected files. Btw double clicking on files should work as well(at least in theory). Swing's buggy handling of such events, however, causes the double click to not always work in IDEA, so I eventually stopped double clicking and switched to using F4. You can also use "Autoscroll to source" from the projects menu - this will open the source files as soon as you select them in the project browser.