Develop with Pleasure II: modest missing features

The ability to go to a class or file AND a particular line # with just Ctrl+N:
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEABKL-5042

Hello Jon,

Time for another trip down "Develop with Pleasure" lane, this time to
tell us what missing feature would add to your development pleasure.

Let's focus this thread on modest (as in not rewrite the roadmap)
features that are missing from IDEA.

Now is a great time for such a thread, by the way. The roadmap level features
for 7.0 are mostly completed, and we still have time remaining for smaller
productivity improvements. So please don't be shy - there's a good chance
your requests will be implemented very quickly. :)

--
Dmitry Jemerov
Software Developer
JetBrains, Inc.
http://www.jetbrains.com/
"Develop with Pleasure!"

Add option for constructor visibility

http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEA-14148

Debugger, Smart Step: two much difference key hits required

http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEA-13889

Syntax highlighting: ability to colorize generic type definitions

http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEA-13785

One very nice feature of the new Eclipse Webtools 2.0 is "in-place" deployment
using Tomcat.
To be fair, they weren't first: similar Ant/Maven tasks for Tomcat and Jetty
predate WTP.

What's nice about it:
-no more WAR file creation
-no more "exploded" directory
-edit JSPs/HTML/CSS with instant refresh in the browser
-just a whole bunch of complexity that disappears
-compile a Java file and reload the URL
-last but not least: speed, speed, speed of development:
Edit/Save/Refresh cycles measured in (single digit) seconds

Why is it "modest":
-implementation is already out there in the Ant/Maven tasks (it's "just"
a custom WebappClassloader IIRC)
-UI work is IDEA should be modest
-Btw: it would be nice if the new Jetty integration could reuse any UI, since
Jetty supports the same similar feature

See:
http://jroller.com/robwilliams/entry/new_tomcat_server_coming_finally

Taras

You can do it for ages for simple module (no dependents) with adequate
module configuration: exploded dir = resource dir = content root

Taras Tielkes wrote:

One very nice feature of the new Eclipse Webtools 2.0 is "in-place"
deployment using Tomcat.
To be fair, they weren't first: similar Ant/Maven tasks for Tomcat and
Jetty predate WTP.

What's nice about it:
-no more WAR file creation
-no more "exploded" directory
-edit JSPs/HTML/CSS with instant refresh in the browser
-just a whole bunch of complexity that disappears
-compile a Java file and reload the URL
-last but not least: speed, speed, speed of development:
Edit/Save/Refresh cycles measured in (single digit) seconds

Why is it "modest":
-implementation is already out there in the Ant/Maven tasks (it's "just"
a custom WebappClassloader IIRC)
-UI work is IDEA should be modest
-Btw: it would be nice if the new Jetty integration could reuse any UI,
since Jetty supports the same similar feature

See:
http://jroller.com/robwilliams/entry/new_tomcat_server_coming_finally

Taras

--
Best regards,
Maxim Mossienko
IntelliJ Labs / JetBrains Inc.
http://www.intellij.com
"Develop with pleasure!"

For me, it's the one obvious missing button on a few toolwindows/dialogs that gets me

Make needs a "rerun" button, like the ant build and many other toolwindows have.
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEADEV-15235

Incoming changes needs a "update project" button.
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEADEV-17255

Every modal progress window should have not just a "background" button but an "always run in background" button/checkbox/what-have-you
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEADEV-11588

--Dave Griffith

and another small one

"Permute arguments" intention only works for method calls, not constructor calls
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEADEV-20378

--Dave Griffith

+ Change the way to select fields to generate constructor/getters/setters...
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEA-13300

Hello Maxim,

You can do it for ages for simple module (no dependents) with adequate
module configuration: exploded dir = resource dir = content root

What about the library JARs of my module (and JARS of module that the current
one depends on)?
They aren't in WEB-INF/lib - actualy they are in ~/.mave/repository/...something.

Taras

I use "Highlight Usages in File" often when browsing new code:
-it acts like a kind of 'lightweight bookmark' system
-right gutter quickly shows read/write stripes.

Sometimes after hightlighting a number of items, I want to remove the highlighting,
but only for some of them.
At the moment pressing Esc will clear all active highlights.

What would be nice instead: Ctrl-Shift-F7 on an item that is already highlighted
should de-highlight only references to that item.

JIRA:
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEADEV-14733

Real EJB3/JPA support. This includes generation of annotated files or orm.xml, much more assistance with persistence.xml. This is a major part of the JEE 5 spec, but we have very weak support.

Widescreen-ration LCDs are getting pretty cheap/common.

Some panes that present information in a "mostly vertical" fashion could
(in theory) be docked to the left/right.
In practice however, the elements of there panes are laid-out/anchored in
a way that only allows top/bottom docking.

JIRA request for "Changes" tool window:
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEA-12150

Similar discussion about JUnit/TestNG panes:
http://www.intellij.net/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=5185389

There's no request for better "Find Usage" docking, but I could create one.

Taras

Yes, this is would be a great area for improvement. Our team just moved to wide screens.

E.g.:
The debugger toolwindow, console tab. The scrolling log portion of this window is well-suited for vertical presentation. But this tab also shows the deployed modules (in a j2ee run configuration) or test cases (in junit run configuration) to the left of the messages. This sub-pane is not well placed in vertical layouts. Would be nice if some of the layouts were aware of horizontal and vertical layouts and could re-arrange themselves accordingly (like move that sub-pane above the messages in a vertical layout).

What do you think of this one? JetBrains put it into "Top be discussed":

Make middle mouse button act as "Jump to Source (F4)"
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEABKL-3835

I can't tell how often I have pressed alt-enter, just to notice that Idea has not finished running all inspections, so the quickfixes are not yet available:

Idea should finish running inspection before reacting on "Alt Enter":
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEA-13753

I get reminded of this one each time I create a new class. Shouldn't it be a very simple change in a single template?

After "New Class": caret should be positioned differently
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEABKL-4502

And finally (for now) two usability improvements for the navigation bar.
If implemented it would feel much more natural and alt-pos1 would directly show you a list of siblings in the same directory to pick from:

Navigation Bar: Show siblings instead of children
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEA-11942

Navigation bar: Alt-F1 should immediately open list
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEA-11943

Hello Stephen,

What do you think of this one? JetBrains put it into "Top be
discussed":

Make middle mouse button act as "Jump to Source (F4)"
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEABKL-3835

What are you suggesting exactly?
Should middle mouse click become some Ctrl-B/F4 hybrid?

-tt

This is more a "Usability Problem" - or perhaps it's just my (mis)understanding.

"Introduce Variable" is probably my #1 refactoring. Looking at the productivity dialog it's even above "rename".
One aspect of introduce variable annoys (or confuses) me to no end: naming suggestions for the introduced variable.

1) There are suggestions in the dropdown on the "IV" dialog. (grey background)
2) You can also invoke Ctrl-Space in the dropdown (blue background)

Annoyances:
-Why are there two ways to do similar things?
-The completions offered differ between (1) and (2)
-For some reason the completion I'm after is always in the other list
-In some cases I get both lists, overlapping! (see attached screenshot)

No JIRA yet (will create one)

Taras

I would really love two things. The first on is to be able to align property names in the declaration line. In other words, if I define a String called foo and an int called bar and a StringTokenizer called baz, I would like to have foo, bar and baz aligned a configurable number of spaces or tabs from the end of the longest property type. I made this request years ago and was told that the tabifier plug in would do what I wanted. It worked very well, but I had to fight with incompatabilities with the EAP's (I use EAP versions most of the time) and it was a pain to have to run a second formatter everytime Idea's ran. Since then a lot more alignment options were added, just not the one I had asked for.

The secont thing that would be really handy and time saving for me would be to auto-indent the contents of a block of code when I type the closing "}".

Here is a small one that is annoying when I want to edit my comment based live templates. I have to shut down IDEA, edit the XML, and restart.

http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEABKL-4090

And if wishes were fishes:

http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEA-12130

I can dream, can't I? :)

+42

+420

Ohh, yes please. We wants it!

--Dave Griffith

That is, configurable, just like it is for Java, JSP, Javascript, ...

http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEADEV-11973

afaik, you can already do that several builds ago..

Hitting CtrlN or CtrlShift+N twice could bring up the last search

http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEABKL-3274