TMate: How to use TMate to start a new Project?

I have TMate installed, and access to our CVS repository. As yet there is no IntelliJ project in the code base. I notice that TMate will do a module checkout AND create project files along the way.

Cool, but I can only access that functionality from within an existing IntelliJ project, as the TMate menu item is always dimmed unless a project is open.

How do you actually use the module checkout feature to create project files?