IntelliJ IDEA Configuration Tips and Shortcut Guide

1. Set up Maven – Open File → Settings → Search "Maven", then configure the Maven home directory to point to the bin folder, specify the user settings file location, and set the local repository path.

2. Adjust code line width – Navigate to File → Settings → Editor → Code Style. Enable "Wrap when typing reaches right margin" under the Right margin option, or enable "Ensure right margin is not exceeded" in

File → Settings → Code Style → Java → Wrapping and Braces → Keep when reformatting

to automatically wrap long lines.

3. Make completion case‑insensitive – Open File → Settings → Editor → General → Code Completion and set Case sensitive completion to NONE.

4. Force Maven dependency refresh – If changes to pom.xml are not picked up, manually delete libraries under Project Settings, clean the Maven project view, and then Reimport the Maven project.

5. Default IDE configuration location – The default configuration folder is C:\Users\<username>.IntelliJIdea14. It can be backed up or changed via %IDEA_HOME%/bin/idea.properties.

6. Hide unwanted files/folders – Use

File → Settings → Editor → File Types → Ignore files and folders

to add patterns such as *.iml or .idea.

7. Switch to Eclipse keymap – Change the keymap via File → Settings → Keymap and select the Eclipse preset.

8‑15. Common shortcut customizations – Configure shortcuts for line numbers, case‑insensitive completion, asterisk‑marked modified tabs, auto‑popup documentation, and many productivity shortcuts (e.g., Ctrl+Tab, Ctrl+W, Alt+Insert, Ctrl+Shift+A, Shift+Shift, Ctrl+Shift+Enter, Ctrl+Alt+Enter, etc.).

16. Fix SVN sync issues – Enable Use command line client under File → Settings → Subversion → General and point to the svn.exe executable (avoid spaces in the path).

17. Exclude *.iml from SVN – Add *.iml to Editor → File Types → Ignore files and folders and also ignore the .idea folder.

18. Change editor font size – Adjust via

File → Settings → Editor → Colors & Fonts → Font → Size

.

19. Set IDE encoding – Configure IDE, project, and properties file encodings under File → Settings → File Encodings.

20. Live Templates – Use shortcuts like "abc".sout for System.out.println("abc") and type list.for to generate a for‑each loop.

21. Tomcat VM options – Add -Xms256m -Xmx512m -XX:PermSize=128m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m to the VM options.

22. Install plugins – For example, to install FindBugs:

File → Settings → Plugins → Browse repositories → FindBugs → Install

(online) or download the zip and use Install plugin from disk... (offline).

23. Increase IDE memory – Edit %IDEA_HOME%/bin/idea.exe.vmoptions to adjust heap size.

24. Import Eclipse web project to Tomcat – Enable the Web facet in project configuration and add the artifact to the deployment list.

25. Reduce CPU usage when opening files – Disable inspections via File → Settings → Editor → Inspections.

26. Add Spring/Struts support – Use Project Settings → Modules → Add to include related frameworks.

27. Enable automatic compilation – Turn on Make project automatically under Build, Execution, Deployment → Compiler. Resolve compilation errors caused by mixed JDK versions.

28. Generate serialVersionUID – Enable the inspection Serializable class without 'serialVersionUID' and press Alt+Enter on the class name.

29. Presentation mode – Activate via Alt+V → View → Enter Presentation Mode to focus on a single file; exit with Alt+V → Exit Presentation Mode.

30. Inject Language for JSON strings – Place the cursor inside a string, press Alt+Enter, choose Inject language or reference → JSON, and edit the JSON fragment directly.

31. Use Symbol search – Press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+N to locate a method or class by partial name.

32. Resolve Windows shortcut conflicts – Disable conflicting shortcuts via the desktop's graphic options settings.

For further details and additional tips, refer to the original source and the accompanying screenshots.