IntelliJ IDEA 2021.1 Help

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Scheme

In this area, choose the code style scheme and change it as required. Code style scheme settings are automatically applied every time IntelliJ IDEA generates, refactors, or reformats your code.

Code styles are defined at the project level and at the IDE level (global).

  • At the project level, settings are grouped under the Project scheme, which is predefined and is marked in bold. The Project style scheme is applied to the current project only.

    You can copy the Project scheme to the IDE level, using the Copy to IDE command.

  • At the IDE level, settings are grouped under the predefined Default scheme (marked in bold), and any other scheme created by the user by the Duplicate command (marked as plain text). Global settings are used when the user doesn't want to keep code style settings with the project and share them.

    You can copy the IDE scheme to the current project, using the Copy to Project command.

ItemDescription
Scheme

From this list, select the scheme to be used. The predefined schemes are shown bold. The custom schemes, ones created as copies of the predefined schemes, are in plain text. The location where the scheme is stored is written next to each scheme, for example, the Default scheme is stored in the IDE, the Project scheme is stored in the project.

Invoke the commands to manage the schemes

Click this button to invoke the list of commands to manage the schemes:

  • Copy to IDE...- Choose this option to copy the scheme settings to IntelliJ IDEA.

  • Export...- Choose this option to export the selected scheme to an .xml file or a .json file in the selected location.

    Export the scheme

    You can use the JSON file to change code style settings for external tools. The JSON file contains all code style settings for all languages. The settings in the file are grouped by a language. The group all in the file contains generic code style settings that affect all languages. The settings format uses lowercase letters and some of the settings names differ from the names in the xml file for better readability.

    JSON file

  • Import Scheme...- Choose this option to import the scheme of the selected type from the specified location.

    Import the scheme

  • Copy to Project...- Choose this option to copy the scheme settings to be stored with a project.

  • Duplicate...- Choose this option to create a copy of the selected scheme.

  • Reset- Choose this option to reset the default or bundled color scheme to the initial defaults shipped with IntelliJ IDEA. This command becomes available only if some changes have been done.

  • Rename- Choose this option to change the name of the selected custom scheme. Press Enter to save changes, or Escape to cancel.

Tabs and Indents

Use tab character

  • If this checkbox is selected, tab characters are used:

    • On pressing the Tab key

    • For indentation

    • For reformatting code

  • If the checkbox is cleared, IntelliJ IDEA uses spaces instead of tabs.

Smart tabs

An indentation consists of two parts. One part results from nesting code blocks, and the other part is determined by alignment.

  • If this checkbox is selected, the part that results from nesting contains both tabs and spaces (if necessary), while the part defined by alignment consists only of spaces.

  • If this checkbox is cleared, only tabs are used. This means that after reformatting a group of spaces that fits the specified tab size is automatically replaced with a tab, which may result in breaking fine alignment.

Tab sizeIn this field, specify the number of spaces that fits in a tab.
IndentIn this field, specify the number of spaces to be inserted for each indent level.
Last modified: 08 March 2021
Code Style. YAML Inspections