IntelliJ IDEA 2023.1: Key UI, Performance, and Language Updates

IntelliJ IDEA 2023.1 Main Changes

New UI options – vertical split tool‑window area, compact mode, macOS project tabs, redesigned Run widget, and the ability to hide the toolbar in Zen and Distraction‑Free modes.

Performance improvements – faster Maven project import, smarter file‑indexing that makes IDE features available earlier, and background commit checks that speed up the commit process.

Git/Mercurial – commit checks now run after a commit but before a push.

Spring Security – navigation from controllers to security matchers and request mappings.

User Experience

Full UI scaling, multiple tool‑window layout management, in‑editor onboarding tips for new projects, Actions on Save for new projects, ML‑powered class search in Search Everywhere, and antivirus configuration suggestions for better performance.

Editor

New paste‑placement setting, option to show spaces as dots, regex‑based search‑and‑replace, intention action to fix Markdown tables, Fill Paragraph action for equal‑length lines, dedicated Markdown preferences page, and spell‑checker improvements that ignore hashes and special values.

Java

New inspections, support for Java 20 features, upgraded Extract Method refactoring with options for multiple return variables, and autocomplete in the VM Options field of Run/Debug configurations.

Scala

Improved Scala 3 support: handling of braceless code, new compiler option -Wunused:imports, better highlighting, correct generation of overriding methods with using clauses, enhanced sbt project support, upgraded inspections, and numerous decompiler fixes.

Web Development

Astro framework support via a new plugin, TypeScript support in Vue templates, automatic conversion of strings to template literals, and Tailwind CSS enhancements including class attribute completion and an experimental configuration‑file option.