Comments on: For a Great Time, Try These IDEA Project Tips

By: Ravs

Ravs — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 15:59:55 +0000

Hi there, Informative post. Thanks. Do you know how to view generated class files in the project window. Thanks again

Ravs

By: Willis Morse

Willis Morse — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:37:44 +0000

This is great stuff. I was forced to find all this on my own; I’m glad to see someone has posted this.

A few more items that pertain to Idea 6 (haven’t tried them in 7 yet):

- Do not use a single-module project. By default, these store absolute paths to assets inside the project folder. Use a multi-module project, even if you only have a single module.

- Setting run cofigs to “shared” is a good idea, but there is a bug in Idea where it will sometimes duplicate run configs into the .iws file and then forget to update them when you edit the run config later. The next time you open the project in Idea, it copies the old config from the .iws file into the .ipr file. This will cause your .ipr file to be marked as modified, and will often cause more bogus SCM conflicts. The sequence to reproduce this seems to be:

1. Create and save a run config with the “Share” option off. This puts the config in the .iws file
2. Close and reopen the project
3. Edit and save the run config with the “Share” option checked. This saves the config in the .ipr file, but seems to miss updating the one in the .iws file.
4. Close and reopen the project
5. Idea will often copy the old config from the .iws file into the .ips file

To avoid this problem, always check that option the first time you create a run config. If this has already happened to you, quit Idea and manually remove the run config from the .iws file.

By: Weiqi Gao

Weiqi Gao — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:16:19 +0000

Another thing to look out for when sharing IDEA project files is global libraries. Global library settings are saved in the ~/.IntelliJIdea{50/60/70}/config/options/applicationLibraries.xml. If your project has a dependency on a global library, everyone in the team has to have the global library setup correctly.

By: Fred

Fred — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:39:09 +0000

Well, since I migrated most of my project to Maven2 I asked maven to write my *.i?? files, and I’m quite happy.
I even had the luxury to write my own plugin for it.
But now with Maven2 integration in IDEA 7 it’s just perfect:
- Fetch external libs and sources automatically, and the classpath points directly to the local repository
- Sources and classes are the same in maven and idea build
- Link modules between them from their POM dependencies
- No more IWS or IML at all, the pom.xml is the master and can be open directly
- Can execute your maven build from the plugin
- Generated code is part of source path

And all this shareable over the VCS system via pom.xml files.

BTW: Good point, the plugin cleanup after install is a MUST (especially Starteam or ClearCase if no need for them).