What’s New in IntelliJ IDEA 2023.1? UI, Performance, and Language Enhancements

IntelliJ IDEA 2023.1 has been released, featuring a revamped new UI based on user feedback, performance improvements for faster Maven project import, background commit checks, and Spring Security navigation support in the Ultimate edition.

Key UI Updates

Vertical split tool window area option

Compact mode – reduces toolbar and tool window title height, spacing, and uses smaller icons, ideal for small screens.

macOS project tab support

Redesigned “Run” widget

Hide toolbar in Zen and Distraction‑Free modes

New dark editor color scheme automatically enabled with the new UI.

Key Updates

New UI enhancements are applied throughout the IDE.

File‑scanning and indexing now run in a smart mode, making IDE features available earlier on startup.

Significant performance boost when importing Maven projects.

Git and Mercurial commit checks run in the background after commit, before push, speeding up the commit process.

IDEA Ultimate 2023.1 adds easy navigation from Spring controllers to security matchers.

User Experience

Full UI scaling – you can zoom the entire IDE while proportionally resizing all UI elements.

Multiple tool‑window layouts can be saved, managed, and switched on demand.

In‑editor onboarding tips can be added to sample code for new users.

New “Actions on Save” options for predefined new projects.

Search Everywhere now enables ML‑powered class search by default.

IDE suggests adjusting Microsoft Defender settings for better performance when real‑time protection is on.

Editor Enhancements

New setting to control where pasted content goes when no explicit copy/cut selection.

Option to show spaces as dots only when code is selected.

Regex‑based custom search‑and‑replace inspections.

Intention action to fix Markdown table formatting.

“Fill Paragraph” action for Markdown to wrap long text evenly.

Dedicated Markdown preferences page under Settings | Editor | General | Smart Keys.

Spelling inspection no longer flags hash values or special literals.

Java

Several new and updated inspections to keep Java code clean.

Support for new Java 20 language features.

Enhanced Extract Method refactoring with options for multiple return variables.

Auto‑completion added to the VM Options field in Run/Debug configuration dialogs.

Scala

Improved Scala 3 support, including braceless code handling and new compiler options -Wunused:imports and using clause handling.

Better sbt project support.

Upgraded “Unused declaration” and “Can be private” inspections.

Extensive fixes for Scala 2 and Scala 3 decompiler.

Web Development

Astro framework support via a new plugin.

TypeScript support added to Vue templates.

Automatic conversion of strings to template literals.

Tailwind CSS configuration options such as classAttributes and experimental tailwindCSS.experimental.configFile for custom class name completion.

For more details, see the official JetBrains blog post.