Toggle button for "Always select opened file" in Project view
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Hi,
I remember that in Project View, there used to be a toggle button for "Always select opened file". Right now, I need to right-click the three dots and select "Always open..." every time I want to toggle. This is extremely annoying if you do this often.
I am used to switching between these two modes. Is this possible to restore the toggle functionality?
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Hi Tomasz,
I'm afraid not, but there are at least two workarounds:
@... Thanks for replying. Is there a reason why you removed this toggle? It was such a cool feature!
I really need a button (not shortcut) for this. If I understand this correctly, solution 2 would be modyfing the main toolbar which is a bit far from the crosshair button (especialy with the breadcrubms bar enabled)
Is there a way to modify this toolbar?
The ultimate goal of hiding certain UI elements like this toggle for instance is making the UI less cluttered.
With more and more options added to tool windows over the years, we decided to keep as buttons only those that are used most often. According to the collected metrics, the toggle you are referring to did not end at the top of the list, that's why it was moved under the ellipsis menu.
Unfortunately, tool window control toolbars are not supposed to be customizable.
I strongly agree with op. This feature was the top feature why I started using Intellij. Why on Earth someone would remove a core advantage feature over competitor.
I had a pause with programming and now coming back to it.
So I've been struggling with my old long project tree and wondered if there is something wrong with me but now I understand it is about that removed stellar feature.
Absolutely you should have it both ways to achieve effective workflow.
I.e selecting editor tab selects corresponding file in project tree and selecting a file in project tree opens it in editor tab. That is how it should work.
Now it feels like the project tree is enough for hello world type examples but I have around 100 classes and it is real pain to navigate them in project tree without that pin pointing a location from editor tab which I got used to.
Please, could you please kindly bring both back as toggle behaviour.
PS. Could it be that it (Behavior/Always Select opened File) started to work again in version
Build #IC-251.26927.53, built on June 23, 2025
ForceKing The behavior was never changed or disabled, it continues to work to this day.
The only change was that the button for toggling the behavior was moved under the ellipsis (three dots) menu in the tool window controls area.
If you are having issues with the behavior itself, please let me know.
Maybe we are talkin about different thing with OP?
What I wanted back is:
The expected behavior is: single clicking an editor tab opens and focuses the corresponding item in Project tree.
Likewise when single clicking the item in the project tree opens it in an editor tab.
It did not work in previous version but yesterday after update it started working again. As you see from screenshot below I have had the basic ability to try to get it working from those menus of process tree.
I'm 100% sure it did not work in previous version.
Maybe the reason was different i.e. buried deeper in some tiny variation in (my) installation layout but…:
Yesterday (1. July 2025) I updated from exactly previous version to current build #IC-251.26927.53, built on June 23, 2025 and problem went away.
So from my point of view there was a problem. At least with my installation.
That is different thing as if “it was supposed to work”.
I believe you in that respect.
Now checking “Always Select Opened File” like below actually works:
The expected behavior of that setting is: clicking an editor tab opens and focuses the corresponding item in Project Tree.
That is great!
I thank Intellij programming team bringing this most critical behaviour back to life.