User interface

Last modified: 01 August 2022

When you open a project in IntelliJ IDEA, the default user interface looks as follows:

The Main window

Depending on the set of plugins, IntelliJ IDEA edition, and configuration settings, your IDE may look and behave differently.

Editor

Focus: Escape

Use the editor to read, write, and explore your source code .

Navigation bar

Focus: Alt+Home

Show/hide: View | Appearance | Navigation Bar

The navigation bar at the top is a quick alternative to the Project view, where you can navigate the structure of your project and open files for editing.

tip

If VCS integration is enabled, items in the navigation bar are highlighted according to VCS file status colors.

Use the buttons to the right of the navigation bar to build The Build Project button, run the Run button and debug the Debug button your application, access your project structure settings the Project Structure button, and perform basic version control operations (if the version control integration is configured). It also contains buttons to Run Anything The Run Anything button (press Ctrl twice) and Search Everywhere The Search Everywhere button (press Shift twice).

note

The main toolbar with buttons for opening and saving files, undo and redo actions is hidden by default. To show it, select View | Appearance | Toolbar.

Status bar

Show/hide: View | Appearance | Status Bar

The left part of the status bar at the bottom of the main window shows the most recent event messages and descriptions of actions when you hover over them with the mouse pointer. Click a message in the status bar to open it in the Event Log. Right-click the message in the status bar and select Copy to paste the message text when you are searching for a solution to a problem or need to add it to a support ticket or to the IntelliJ IDEA issue tracker.

Use the quick access button Show tool windows or Hide tool windows to switch between tool windows and hide the tool window bars.

The status bar also shows the progress of background tasks. You can click Background tasks to show the Background Tasks manager.

The right part of the status bar contains widgets that indicate the overall project and IDE status and provide access to various settings. Depending on the set of plugins and configuration settings, the set of widgets can change. Right-click the status bar to select the widgets that you want to show or hide.

Status bar widgets

Widget

Description

52:11

Shows the line and column number of the current caret position in the editor. Click the numbers to move the caret to a specific line and column. If you select a code fragment in the editor, IntelliJ IDEA also shows the number of characters and line breaks in the selected fragment.

LF

Shows the line endings used to break lines in the current file. Click this widget to change the line separators.

Encoding

Shows the encoding used to view the current file. Click the widget to use another encoding.

Column

Indicates that the column selection mode is enabled for the current editor tab. You can press Alt+Shift+Insert to toggle it.

Read-only Read and write

Click to lock the file from editing (set it to read-only) or unlock it if you want to edit the file.

VCS branches

If version control integration is enabled, this widget shows the current VCS branch. Click it to manage VCS branches.

Code style indents

Shows the indent style used in the current file. Click to configure the tab and indent settings for the current file type or disable indent detection in the current project.

Memory indicator

Shows the amount of memory that IntelliJ IDEA consumes out of the total amount of heap memory. For more information, see Increase the memory heap of the IDE.

Tool windows

Show/hide: View | Tool Windows

Tool windows provide functionality that supplements editing code. For example, the Project tool window shows you the structure of your project, and the Run tool window displays the output of your application when you run it.

By default, tool windows are docked to the sides and bottom of the main window. You can arrange them as necessary, undock, resize, hide, and so on. Right-click the title of the tool window or click The Show Options Menu button in the title for its arrangement options.

You can assign shortcuts to quickly access the tool windows that you frequently use. Some of them have shortcuts by default. For example, to open the Project tool window, press Alt+1, and to open the Terminal tool window, press Alt+F12. To jump from the editor to the last active tool window, press F12.

Context menus

You can right-click various elements of the interface to see the actions available in the current context. For example, right-click a file in the Project tool window for actions related to that file, or right-click in the editor to see actions that apply to the current code fragment.

Most of these actions can also be performed from the main menu at the top of the screen or the main window. Actions with shortcuts show the shortcut next to the action name.

Popup menus

Popup menus provide quick access for actions related to the current context. Here are some useful popup menus and their shortcuts:

  • Alt+Insert opens the Generate popup for generating boilerplate code based on the context.

  • Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T opens the Refactor This popup with a list of contextually available refactorings.

  • Alt+Insert in the Project tool window opens the New popup for adding new files and directories to your project.

  • Alt+` opens the VCS Operations popup with contextually available actions for your version control system.

You can create custom popup menus using quick lists of actions that you often use.

Main window

The main window lets you work with a single IntelliJ IDEA project. You can open multiple projects in multiple windows . By default, the window header displays the name of the project and the name of the currently open file. If there are multiple modules, it will also show the name of the relevant module.

To show the full path to the project and to the current file, select Always show full paths in window header on the Appearance & Behavior | Appearance page of the IDE settings Ctrl+Alt+S.