Annoying issues with IDEA 7.0.x

Hello Afkham,

I have been a die hard IDEA fan & for the last 6 years. I'm sorry to
say that I've had the worst experience with IDEA 7.0.x out of all IDEA
versions. What I liked about IDEA is that it makes it easy to do the
simple things. In 7.0 i find several annoying issues like the UI not
getting rendered properly, syntax errors not getting highlighted, tab
colors not changing after the files are committed etc. I'm on Ubuntu
7.04. I switched back to IDEA 6.0.5.

If you really want to help us improve the product, then, please, provide
specific details on the issues you're encountering, rather than write "IDEA
sucks" posts. For example, we would very much appreciate the screenshots
of UI not getting rendered properly and the code samples where syntax errors
are not getting highlighted.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

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

Hi Dmitry,

Although I completely agree with your policy to help improve the product instead of bashing it, I do have to admit that I too have seen some quality difference when compared to the previous IntelliJ 6.X releases. For instance, it strikes me as highly peculiar that the product is still in EAP even after the 7.0.3 maintenance release (and maybe an upcoming 7.0.4 release).

I speak only for myself that I have not bought an upgrade license yet due to the quality of the product and the presence of the EAP releases which would normally would have been closed already.

Of course topics as "IDEA 7.0.X sucks" do not help the community nor JetBrains and of course the people at JetBrains are working hard to make the product comply to the quality standards that we have gotten accustomed to, on the other hand I can totally understand Afkham also.

Best regards,

Raymond

Message was edited by:
Raymond Brandon

Hello Raymond,

Although I completely agree with your policy to help improve the
product instead of bashing it, I do have to admit that I too have seen
some quality difference when compared to the previous IntelliJ 6.X
releases. For instance, it strikes me as highly peculiar that the
product is still in EAP even after the 7.0.3 maintenance release (and
maybe an upcoming 7.4 release).

I speak only for myself that I have not bought an upgrade license yet
due to the quality of the product and the presence of the EAP releases
which would normally would have been closed already.

This is actually a somewhat strange twist of logic. In this release, we are
able to dedicate more time to bugfixing, and deliver more fixes and improvements
to users post-release. This, by itself, is not any evidence of the quality
of x.0 version - rather, it's caused by a somewhat different allocation of
the team's resources now. The users should be happy about that, but instead
they seem to be worried for some reason.

And as for making EAP builds of bugfix updates available - we've been doing
this for every release. As long as we're working on bugfixes, we're releasing
EAP builds of the bugfix updates.

If you have specific issues to point out regarding the product quality, feel
free to do so, and we'll look at them.

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

I will go on record that I think IntelliJ 7.0.x is the best IntelliJ release to date. I have used IntelliJ since 4.x.

I had some performance issues with 6.x but those are a thing of the past in 7.0.X.

I use 7.0.2 on my Windows machine at work and use 7.0.2 on my Mac at home. It is a pleasure to work with on both platforms (although I much prefer coding at home on my Mac).

Integrating with local application servers is something I could never quite get configured right in earlier versions of IntelliJ. In 7.0.x it requires very minimal setup and is really easy to setup (assuming you have a sane project structure and if you don't that is hardly IntelliJ's fault). Developing web applications is actually enjoyable now with 7.

Considering the above negative posts, i feel compelled to say that I enjoy very much 7.0 (bought a personal license for 5.0 which i upgraded for 6.0 and then 7.0).

There is only One thing that really bugs me : sometimes, IDEA will stop accepting any input event though the display still refreshes normally and the ui updates itself (especially the GC progress keeps moving). In this case I have to kill IDEA using the Program manager (but have not yet managed to get sufficient info to post a JIRA).

It took to version 7.0.2 before I could use IDEA. It was really buggy beforehand and hard to reproduce the problems.

I like the new features, is now stable but the performance is really bad.

It is happening to all my coworkers. Maybe it is the code base we are using. Maybe it is the dependent module jar files that gets rebuilt externally. Actually, a couple of my co workers went back to 5.0 because of this. IJ is constantly going through GC pauses or refreshing the dependent code base which takes some time and freezes the UI. It is the constant conversation piece when we are Skyping and trying to review work: "Hang on, I'm waiting for IJ".

It must be my dev environment since people are saying that the start up is noticeably faster. Whereas I found it to be the opposite.

I'm sorry to be vague. You can't create a bug report on this. Does this mean I don't like IJ? No. Even in its current form I feel I'm way more productive than Eclipse. However, it is not optimal.

Dino

Hello Dino,

I'm sorry to be vague. You can't create a bug report on this.

You can. Please follow the instructions for taking a CPU snapshot here:
http://support.jetbrains.com/kb/entry!default.jspa?categoryID=5&externalID=192&fromSearchPage=true

Then please create a JIRA issue with attached CPU snapshots of slow operations.

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

The problem is that IJ is doing some processing and there's a modal dialog preventing from pressing the CPU buttons.

Anyhow, I enabled this and see if I can utilize it.

Hello Dino,

The problem is that IJ is doing some processing and there's a modal
dialog preventing from pressing the CPU buttons.

Another option is to download an evaluation version of YourKit from http://www.yourkit.com/
and use it to connect to the running IntelliJ IDEA instance. Then you'll
be able to capture snapshots even when IDEA's UI is locked.

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

I agree that IJ 7 is by far the best release I have used. Its a hell of a lot more stable and faster than 6. Ok there are still some outstanding isses (mainly around the new ClearCase integration from my experience) but these seem to be getting fewer and fewer with each new build.

You people are all developers so should understand that you can't possibly hope to get everything right on the first pass, especially when there is such a large team working on it.

You need to cut them some slack and try to provide positive feedback, if you have any problems then enter a defect.

Hi Dmitry,
Sorry if the topic sounds too harsh. I've been using IDEA since mid 2002 (2.x) and fell in love with it from day one. It is strange that while most Windows users are saying that 7.0.x is one of the best releases, I find that it is unstable. Like I mentioned before, I'm working on Ubuntu Linux ans so are my colleagues at office. All of us feel that the 6.x versions were far better than 7.0.x. We are part of the open source software developer community and hence most of us are using Linux.

Perhaps, you will need to put in more resources for testing IDEA on Linux. The intention of this post was not to discourage or demean IDEA or its developers but to provide constructive criticism so that future versions of IDEA will be of much higher quality so that we can continue to "Develop with Pleasure"

Thanks
Azeez

Hi Dave,
It is true that you can't get everything right on the first pass. But you should be careful not to break functionality people have been happily using for years.

Azeez

This is also my experience. 7.0.x is far too slow to be usable. I have gone back to 5.1.2, which although lacking some of the features of 7.0.x does at least work reliably and fast.

Given that others seem to find 7.0.x to be fine, I would guess its some peculiarity of our (large) codebase - but then I was attracted to IntelliJ in the first instance because it "Just Worked" and was noticeably faster than eclipse. Given the problems I am experiencing with IntelliJ and the continued lack of OSGi support I am considering trying eclipse again.

Hello Afkham,

Perhaps, you will need to put in more resources for testing IDEA on
Linux. The intention of this post was not to discourage or demean IDEA
or its developers but to provide constructive criticism so that future
versions of IDEA will be of much higher quality so that we can
continue to "Develop with Pleasure"

Sorry, but this is not constructive criticism. It would be constructive if
you submitted at least one specific, detailed problem report which we could
then investigate and possibly fix in a 7.0.x update. General complaints about
how everything is slow and unstable don't help us much, and certainly won't
lead to any fixes or improvements in the product.

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

Hi Dmitry,

Here are some of the issues:

1. I have set the auto sync with file system to "on" in the IDE. I makes some source code changes. Next I use the command line SVN client and commit the code. Still the colors in the tabs do not change to reflect that the code has been committed. I click on the synchronize button on the button bar at the top. Still the colors don't change. So I open the project browser tab on the left hand side, select all files, right click and do "Synchronize selected files". Now the tab color changes, but I have another problem. By clicking on a file in the file browser I cannot select only that file since I selected all the files. The workaround is to do a shift+click on some other file and again click on the relevant file. If I have to do several commits a day, this gets very annoying.

2. Suddenly, import class suggestions stop working. This requires a restart of the IDE

3. Sometimes, the words inside String literals are identified as keywords, and red bars appear on the right side falsely indicating compilation errors. This requires a restart of the IDE

4.Suddenly, even if there are compilation errors in the code, those are not highlighted in the IDE. This requires a restart of the IDE

5. Sometimes when I try to commit using the integrated SN client, the commit fails. So I use the command line SVN client and commit that file. This has made me loose faith in the integrated SVN client, hence I have given up using it and use only the command line svn client.

Above issues are some of those that immediately come to my mind. I used to restart the IDE every time these happen.

I'm also attaching a modified idea.sh file which enables a user to run idea.sh from anywhere in the file system and also place a shortcut on the Desktop or some toolbar. Please compare this with the original idea.sh file and compare the (minor) differences. The original idea.sh cannot symlinked and run.

Hope this helps
Azeez

I have found 7.0 to be the best yet and I really have none of the problems you cite. It might be an Ubuntu thing?

Really, 7.0 is by far the most USEFUL-feature-rich release to date, the fastest to date, the most stable and least memory hungry.

I (XP64 / 4G RAM / 7.02) have no issues whatsoever.

I've run every release of 7.0.x on Ubuntu 7.10 (both 32 bit and 64 bit versions) with no problems whatsoever.

the tab color changes, but I have another problem. By
clicking on a file in the file browser I cannot
select only that file since I selected all the files.
The workaround is to do a shift+click on some other
file and again click on the relevant file. If I have

I have exactly same problem with item selections (I have Windows). And this behaviour is general, it is not related to SVN.

Steve Hickson wrote:
>> the tab color changes, but I have another problem. By
>> clicking on a file in the file browser I cannot
>> select only that file since I selected all the files.
>> The workaround is to do a shift+click on some other
>> file and again click on the relevant file. If I have

I have exactly same problem with item selections (I have Windows). And this behaviour is general, it is not related to SVN.

Well, Dmitry, since you are asking for specific Jira issue:
I reported precisely this issue almost
immediately when you first introduced the bug (as part of
support for refactore-move/copy by DnD in project tree, IIRC):
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEA-13881
You immediately assigned it, but then it stayed in
IDEA-FEEDBACK unnoticed for half a year.

Hello Afkham,

1. I have set the auto sync with file system to "on" in the IDE. I
makes some source code changes. Next I use the command line SVN client
and commit the code. Still the colors in the tabs do not change to
reflect that the code has been committed.

Which exactly IDEA version are you using? This bug was fixed in 7.0.2.

The project view selection behavior is indeed a known and valid problem,
and we'll try to get it fixed in 7.0.3.

2. Suddenly, import class suggestions stop working. This requires a
restart of the IDE

3. Sometimes, the words inside String literals are identified as
keywords, and red bars appear on the right side falsely indicating
compilation errors. This requires a restart of the IDE

4.Suddenly, even if there are compilation errors in the code, those
are not highlighted in the IDE. This requires a restart of the IDE

We have never received reports of such problems, nor seen such problems ourselves.
Are you using any third-party plugins? If you do, do the problems still happen
if you disable all third-party plugins?

5. Sometimes when I try to commit using the integrated SN client, the
commit fails. So I use the command line SVN client and commit that
file. This has made me loose faith in the integrated SVN client, hence
I have given up using it and use only the command line svn client.

How exactly does it fail? If is produced an error message, what's the text
of that message?

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

The Ubuntu problem might be a Beryl/Compiz thing: http://blogs.reucon.com/srt/2007/11/04/empty_windows_in_swing_applications_on_ubuntu_7_10.html

+1 to this one, i've been bitten by it a number of times

Which exactly IDEA version are you using? This bug was fixed in 7.0.2.

I used to use IDEA 7.0.2 before I went back to IDEA 6.0.5

>We have never received reports of such problems, nor seen such problems ourselves.
>Are you using any third-party plugins? If you do, do the problems still happen
>if you disable all third-party plugins?

Yeah, I use a number of plugins. I will disable the third party plugins and retry and get back to you.

Thanks
Azeez

Hi Andy,

>I have gone back to 5.1.2, which although lacking some of the features of 7.0.x does at least work reliably and fast.

Also in my personal experience, IDEA 5.1.2 was the best version of IDEA, very stable and no annoying issues

I am considering trying eclipse again

I would advise you against that. Whatever the shortcomings of IDEA, I'm happy with the developer productivity boost that IDEA provides, which no other IDE can match. So I would say, let's give the IDEA devs some more time to fix things and stabilize it. I also think they should put in more effort into testing it on non-Windows platforms since gradually developers are moving towards Linux based OSs.

Azeez

3. Sometimes, the words inside String literals are identified as keywords, and red bars appear on the right side falsely indicating compilation errors. This requires a restart of the IDE

Please see the attached screenshot which illustrates the bug I reported in item 3. I am running with a minimal set of the the default plugins which came with IDEA 7.0.2

is it IntelliLang that parses (and syntax formats) your Hibernate queries ? or Hibernate plugin ?

I have the Hibernate plugin installed. The relevant error message it displays is "identifier(range variable name) expected".

Thibaut wrote:

is it IntelliLang that parses (and syntax formats) your Hibernate queries ? or Hibernate plugin ?

I've noticed the new hibernate support doesn't like "from Foo" but
prefers "select f from Foo f" - it likes the "select" filled out.

Minor pet hate on that one :)

what's strange is it seems fine with the other queries we see on the top of the screen, but it doesn't seem to like the "as" clause

Thibaut wrote:

is it IntelliLang that parses (and syntax formats) your Hibernate queries ? or Hibernate plugin ?

No, IDEA does this itself for Hibernate queries. And the syntax error seems to come from the fact
that "mod" is treated as a keyword and is not a valid identifier here. Could be a bug or a
configuration issue with the Hibernate facet - although I'm not familiar with that.

Sascha