CLion
 
2023.2
Shortcuts: Windows
Get CLion
You are viewing the documentation for an earlier version of CLion.
  1. Work with source code
  2. Intention actions

Intention actions

Last modified: 08 November 2023

As you work in the editor, CLion analyzes your code, searches for ways to optimize it, and detects potential and actual problems.

As soon as the IDE finds a way to alter your code, it displays a yellow bulb icon yellow bulb icon in the editor next to the current line. By clicking this icon, you can view intention actions available in the current context. Intention actions cover a wide range of situations from warnings to optimization suggestions.

A red bulb with an exclamation mark the Quick-fix icon indicates that CLion has detected a problem, and prompts you to select an associated fix — a quick-fix. Quick-fixes and intention actions together are called context actions.

tip

Code inspections also provide quick-fixes but they have different settings. For more information, refer to Code inspections.

Apply intention actions

  1. Place the caret at the code element that you want to modify. Then click the light bulb icon (or press AltEnter) to open the list of suggestions.

    Intention preview opens automatically. If an intention is complex, and the preview cannot be generated, you will see the intention description. hover over available intentions on the suggestion list to preview them.

    Intention action preview

  2. Press Enter or click an intention on the list to apply it.

You can toggle the preview off and on by pressing Ctrl0Q or by enabling Show preview for intention actions when available in Settings (CtrlAlt0S) | Editor | General | Appearance.

Assign a shortcut to an intention

If you want to apply intention actions quicker, you can assign shortcuts to them. Currently, you cannot assign shortcuts to fixes that belong to code inspections.

  1. In the editor, place the caret at the code that triggers the intention action for which you want to assign a shortcut, and click the bulb icon or press AltEnter.

    A list of available suggestions opens.

  2. In the list, click App client expui general more vertical next to the necessary intention action and from the menu that opens, select Assign shortcut….

    Assigning keyboard shortcut to intention action

  3. When the Keyboard Shortcut dialog opens, press the shortcut that you want to use for this action and click OK.

After that you won't need to open the list of suggestions to apply this intention action in the editor; you will be able to do it right away by pressing the configured shortcut.

You can find all your custom intention action shortcuts in settings: press CtrlAlt0S, click Keymap, and locate the Intentions category.

View all intention actions

You can view the full list of available intention actions, and disable actions that you don't need at the moment. To open the list of intention actions:

  1. Press CtrlAlt0S to open the IDE settings and then select Editor | Intentions.

  2. For each intention action, you can see a description and an example. To disable an intention, clear the checkbox next to it.

    Intentions settings

  3. Click Apply to save the changes and close the dialog.

Disable intention actions on the fly

  1. Place the caret at the code element that you want to modify. Then click the light bulb icon (or press AltEnter) to open the list of suggestions.

  2. Select the action you want to disable, click the right arrow next to it, and then click Disable <intention action name>.

    Disable an intention action

Disable the intention action bulb icon

You can disable the intention action icon Intention action icon and the quick-fix icon the quick-fix icon in the editor.

  1. Press CtrlAlt0S to open the IDE settings and then select Editor | General | Appearance.

  2. Disable the Show intention bulb option, apply the changes, and close the dialog.

See also

Reference

Concepts