Intellij documentation

I have asked for that since years - result, only the remark that such a thing is superfluous, because of the online help.

As the increasing amounts of complaints in other threads show, the IntelliJ documentation is in a horrible shape now, and there are no signs that this will change. Compare it to the material MyEclipse provides.

I don't understand that IntelliJ does not improve this. IntelliJ has gone beyond the simple self understanding Java editor as it supports now complex frameworks and technologies. If the situation continues, I am afraid that we have to move away from IntelliJ (guess to where), which would be a pitty.

Kind regards

Thomas Gülden
Munich, Germany

1. In Module Web properties one can add 'Application Server specific
descriptor' for Tomcat server.
2. One can configure web module to have exploded layout (web resource
directory = source directory = module root), after that static resource
modification is available in Tomcat after save.

Krishna Natarajan wrote:

I am getting more and more frustrated with Intellij. The team has not taken care of even simple tasks, which are so very easily available in eclipse.

1. I want to change the context root of a simple web application (only WAR , no EAR). In eclipse I can easily do that by right cliking on project properties. In IDEA the documentation is so very very poor (common, you are charging us real dollars, why be shy of documentation???). Could anyone suggest how to do that, without going to tomcat directories and modifying server.xml manually.

2. Some days back I raised the issue that when you modify your static resources from within the IDEA and then make project, after a couple makes, the tomcat gives out of memory exception. On these forums I see so many many users facing the same problem and Intellij is not doing anything about it??? In the reply I received they simply did not even address this issue. Common, somone answer me please, how to avoid out of memory exceptions for tomcat.

Eclipse Europa you modify your static resources 1000 times, and then instantaneously they are reflected back in your application and yes, you do not have to deploy in the TOMCAT installation directory.

I would request Intellij to please take care of customers, else what stops us from moving on to eclipse??

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

Hi Maxim,
Can you please take request for proper Intellij documentation to your management.
You are loosing real customers because of this.

Recently I proposed to purchase Intellij, which was turned down. reason: IDEA may do terrific stuff, but you never know how to do that.

Adding tomcat specific deployment descriptor would add only "context.xml"
What should I do if I want to have "server.xml" into the IDEA?

Thanks

I second this. I'm desperately looking for some reliable step-by-step tutorials on how to develop different types of web applications such as jsf, struts, spring, etc. using IntelliJ, how to debug and databinding. But the flash demos are out-of-date, or missing some important setup / configuration details and and too fast for me. How can I reccommend this product if I can't figure out how to use it!

I hope that the situation can be improved soon. Thanks.
Chau

Context root is specified in context.xml

Krishna Natarajan wrote:

Adding tomcat specific deployment descriptor would add only "context.xml"
What should I do if I want to have "server.xml" into the IDEA?

Thanks

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

Maxim,

I really begin to loose patience a little. Although it is very welcome that JetBrains employees are so helpful here in this forum to explain a certain aspect with which a user has a problem here in this context, the real problem is still that the IntelliJ documentation is not adequate for many users, and so far the "complainers" haven't heard any substantial comments from JetBrains representatives, of how, to what extent and when this will change. That even the simplest request to provide a user guide in a single document printable format (preferably PDF) is neglected since years, tells something of how JetBrains values documentation.

With the new support of frameworks, app servers, JavaScript etc. proper documentation becomes very important. How do you think new unexperienced developers could start with it easily? They'll look at the material provided, compare various IDEs and then probably go with the one which provides the easiest startup.

We use IntelliJ since version 2.5 and did every upgrade since then. For the first time, I feel that for our new team members, IntelliJ might not be the right tool, because they are lost on how to utilize some of the new features. Video tutorials aren't adequate. They want comprehensible material, which puts the things together in a context.

I hope that the increasing amount of complaints will have some impact. However, improvements of the documentation needs to be done now, and not for the coming version, which might be released in a year or so.

Kind regards

Thomas Gülden
Munich, Germany

Context is okay.
But I want to modify other parameters which are there in server.xml

How would I configure IDEA so that I can modify IDEA's copy of server.xml, just as I can very easily do with Eclipse?

These would include enable SSL or so many other properties specified in server.xml

Thanks,

Please, file JIRA request.

Krishna Natarajan wrote:

Context is okay.
But I want to modify other parameters which are there in server.xml

How would I configure IDEA so that I can modify IDEA's copy of server.xml, just as I can very easily do with Eclipse?

These would include enable SSL or so many other properties specified in server.xml

Thanks,

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

I do not know what is JIRA. Can you file it?

This is a basic thing. This has been with eclipse since ages.
Wake up Intellij !!

Our users do not requested it (probably, they modified server.xml by
hand :)

Krishna Natarajan wrote:

This is a basic thing. This has been with eclipse since ages.
Wake up Intellij !!

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

I ask all users to add JIRA requests
(http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEA) for the features they want
because it means feature importance to requestor and there is
possibility to have interaction with the user (e.g. feature support is
finished, etc).

Anyway, we will take care. Thank you for the feedback.

Krishna Natarajan wrote:

I do not know what is JIRA. Can you file it?

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

Thanks Maxim. I appreciate the time you spend on these forums.

If you want someone to help you with documentation, I volunteer my services.

Ofcourse I have a full time job, but I would nevertheless volunteer 5-6 hours every week writing documentation for you, if you provide me necessary support (that is tell me what is what :) )

It can become community effort, an open source project too, but for now lets get started.

Thanks, (This is a serious suggestion and not a pun)

You should simply modify ]]>/conf/server.xml.

Context is okay.
But I want to modify other parameters which are there in server.xml

How would I configure IDEA so that I can modify IDEA's copy of server.xml, just as I can very easily do with Eclipse?

These would include enable SSL or so many other properties specified in server.xml

Thanks,

--
Nikolay Chashnikov
Software Developer
JetBrains, Inc
http://www.jetbrains.com
"Develop with pleasure!"

personally, i like flash movies more than help files explaining everything. i watch them once and that's all i need to see. never had any problem with non existent documentation because i never read it anyway - i never needed to. everything just worked the way i expected it to.
this is where eclipse failed miserably.
take any button:
idea -> tooltip, telling me the hotkey and what the button does
eclipse -> nothing.

or a random panel:
debugger view configuration
idea -> several textfields/ a table, all with code completition. i immediately knew what i could configure where and how.
eclipse -> a textarea, no help when pressing f1, nothing. i had no idea what i could enter here and which format was expected

First of all I want to point to http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/training/demos.html#idea7 where you can find flash demos on various functionality of IntelliJ IDEA.

As of PDF documentation, it will be available soon, when the help content refactoring we're currently busy with will be done.

Thomas,

thank you for your feedback. We are now working on improving the documentation, and will take into consideration your remarks. The updated version will be available on the site.
Could you please specify more exactly, why do you consider the video tutorials inappropriate?

Thank you

Irina Megorskaya

Hi Irina

Your confirmation was then one I expected to here since a long time. Great und many thanks that you now do something on the documentation issue.

I don't consider video documentation as inappropriate, but I think, it should be only an addition to the regular one and should not replace it. If you look at the MyEclipse doc (sorry for mentioning this too often, but i think it is a good example), you can see that they even mix normal docs and flash doc nicely and conveniently. I know that JavaHelp cannot deal with video content, which could be another reason to move to another help platform.

Anayway, I am happy that things are on the way to improve.

Kind regards

Thomas Gülden
Munich, Germany

I think there are two different types of documentation: reference
documentation and tutorials.

Tutorials give you a step-by-step overview of the feature concerned.
They are designed to be read/viewed starting from the beginning and
working through to the end. Video seems like a suitable medium for this.

Reference documentation should tell you everything you need to know
about a feature. You should be able to dip in and find information
without having to start at the beginning. This probably means that it
should be written, indexed and cross-referenced.

R

The couple of seemingly-easy-to-address-but-painful-not-to-have help system issues that I've added as JIRA issues went into backlog purgatory. Not only has the help content been in a bad state for quite some time, the help system itself is archaic and shows no sign of improvement.

Help should allow phrase searches--
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEABKL-5035

Help should indicate when there are no matches--
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEABKL-5034

If javahelp is what's keeping you from making any improvements, please ditch it asap.

Hello Jon,

The couple of seemingly-easy-to-address-but-painful-not-to-have help
system issues that I've added as JIRA issues went into backlog
purgatory. Not only has the help content been in a bad state for quite
some time, the help system itself is archaic and shows no sign of
improvement.

Help should allow phrase searches--
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEABKL-5035
Help should indicate when there are no matches--
http://www.jetbrains.net/jira/browse/IDEABKL-5034

Speaking of the help system itself, we're considering writing a new help
viewer for the next version of IntelliJ IDEA, and we would appreciate pointers
to existing JavaHelp replacement solutions. We've looked into using FlyingSaucer
as the rendering engine for the new help viewer, but looks like it is very
poor at handling errors in content - instead of producing adequate diagnostics,
it just throws internal exceptions with no clue as to where the problem actually
is.

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

Hi Dmitry,

I wish I were more familiar with available options. Does anyone out there have recommendations for JavaHelp alternatives?

Best,
Jon