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 use Ctrl+k for exiting Insert mode.
So, I did the key mapping on IntelliJ.
enter image description here
it seems work well. But, something is wrong.
When I type Ctrl+k, it looks exited insert mode.
but after the input ctrl+k, next input is not recognize.
it's difficult to explain for my poor English. so please try setting Ctrl+k as a Exit Insert Mode, and check the behavior.
thank you for your help.
You should configure alternative shortcuts for the Vim emulation keys as Vim key mappings as in the original Vim. See the Vim help for :map commands. You can put those mapping into your ~/.ideavimrc.
A small example:
inoremap <C-K> <Esc>
Configuring them via "File | Settings | Keymap" is not supported.
I wanted to settup vim-tmux-navigation like navigation on intellij IDE and only way to settup this is from IdeaVim so my configuration in settings -> keymap looks like this:
VimWindowDown_____ alt J
VimWindowLeft______ alt L
VimWindowRight_____alt H
VimWindowUp_______ alt K
But when I split the windows it's not working.... Is this a bug or I'm missing some stuff?
Oh and don't suggest me switcher for my problem...
The best place for setting up custom keys for Vim actions is the ~/.ideavimrc file. You can use the standard Vim map/nmap/noremap/imap/... commands there. For example:
nmap <A-J> <C-W>j
For potential keymap conflicts between the Vim emulation and the IDE see Settings | Vim Emulation.
Chaning Vim actions via Settings | Keymap is not recommended.
OK, got a partial answer.
There is a "Go To Next Splitter" and "Go To Previous Splitter" commands in IntelliJ. So in the keymap settings, change or add keystrokes for those commands to C-h and C-l (or whatever you want). If you are using ideavim, don't forget to override those keymap settings so that C-h and C-l are set to use the IDE. C-h and C-l will probably already be used so be sure you don't need the existing hotkey before you make the change.
This solution will at least allow you to move left/right quickly. Not sure it's going to be possible to move between up/down splits without doing some scripting or if that's even possible to do with scripting.
I just upgraded IdeaVIM to use the newly added support for window management. The problem I'm having is that the keybindings aren't working at all. I've tried editing the keymap manually, adding back the default bindings, but they're not in effect.
When I hit C-w I get some help in the modeline letting me know which keybindings are available at that prefix (l for window right, h for window left etc) but when I hit the second key nothing happens!What's going on here? I'm running ideavim 13.1.3.
NOT exactly the same problem but for me
Vimidea / Vim plugin was not working on Pycharm / Rubymine / Intellij
Finally found the solution!!!
(ON MAC)
Just make sure that you don't have a conflict with the Keymap to refactor->extract->variable and vim emulator!
Go to settings->Keymap->MainMenu->Refactor->Extract->Variable
And remove the shortcut
Now run the shortcut to make the VimEmulator to run, in Mac just hit:
Cmd+option+V (option is the key next to command)
If its still doesn't work it means that you cannot exit insert mode - make sure to bind the escape key to:
settings->Keymap->Plug-ins->ideavim->Exit Insert Mode == escape
Actually using the shortcut to start/stop VimEmulator is a great idea when you ask your team-mate help with your code and he/she is not used to working with Vim.
Just hit cmd+option+V and you are back to using the idea without Vim and again to start working with Vim again :)
You can enable/disble it through: shift-cmd-A, then type ideavim and you'll see a switch on there
I would really like to be able to use IdeaVIM but I am unable to figure out where I can set my custom vim key mappings. For example instead of using Esc I would like to use Ctrl-C and instead of using hjkl I like to use wasd.
I have all these already set in my .vimrc but IdeaVIM failed to load them. I can copy them over manually to whatever file is needed but there is no documentation on how to do this.
As of IdeaVim 0.35 (released 2014-05-15), key mappings in ~/.ideavimrc are supported. You can put source ~/.vimrc in that file if you want to include mappings from ~/.vimrc.
Release announcement
VIM-288
(Note: This question could probably be considered a duplicate of this other StackOverflow question.)
I've done this myself, and its pretty easy in IntelliJ 11. I know that in previous versions (9, maybe?) setting up keymap values is significantly different.
In IntelliJ 11 you can do the following:
Go to Settings
Select Keymap from the left menu
Search for Exit Insert Mode on the right side and associate whatever key you want to use, such as CTRL-C
If you like to have Vim plugin installed (I find it very handy for typing) and at the same time have Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V working for copy and paste actions, do the following:
In the IntelliJ Idea, click on File > Setting. On the left pane, expand Editor and click on Vim Emulation.
Here, under the Shortcut column, find Ctrl+C and change it's Handler (under Handler column) to IDE instead of Vim.
Repeat it for Ctrl+V as well and hit Apply and Ok.
Now, you should be able to use the keyboard shortcuts for copy and paste while keeping the Vim Emulator enabled.
IntelliJ 12.1:
Go to Settings
Select Keymap from the left menu
Find Escape under the Editor Actions section and add the Ctrl-C shortcut there. ("Escape" under the "IdeaVim" section didn't work for me)
Following the same steps, but replacing "Escape" with "Exit Insert Mode" only partially worked for me. It exited insert mode correctly but ignored the following keystroke. So typing Ctrl-C,j,j would exit insert but only go up one line instead of two.