tips on managing many project files for many versions of the same software stack

Hi all,

I have been using Intellij for a long time but I am always spending a lot of time creating new project configs when I branch-off my software modules. We currently have auto generation of module files but I am always having to re-create run/debug configurations(especially web and there are many project level settings(jira, file-colors, etc) that are completly identical from one project to the other.

Does anyone have any good tips on making it easy to manage this?

I have noticed that there are settings for paths(absolute/relative), and sharing features here and there in the IDE, project, and module settings but it is not clear to me what are the best settings to use. I have also noticed that a module can be copied... is that intended to help with my issue... in my case it wouldn't because our module files(*.iml) are created by our build tool(ant-based)

cheers
Florian Hehlen