Intention actions
As you work in the editor, IntelliJ IDEA 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 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. You can view the full list of intentions and customize them in the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S.
A red bulb with an exclamation mark indicates that IntelliJ IDEA 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.
Apply intention actions
Click the bulb icon or press Alt+Enter to open the list of suggestions and select an action from the list.
Press Ctrl+Q or select
from the main menu to open an intention preview.If an intention is complex, and the preview cannot be generated, you will see the intention description. Hover the mouse pointer over available intentions on the suggestion list to preview them.
Once activated, the preview will appear every time you open the list of available intention actions. To close the preview, press Ctrl+Q again while the list of intentions is open.
Press Enter or click an intention on the list to apply it.
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 intentions that belong to code inspections.
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 Alt+Enter.
A list of available suggestions opens.
In the list, click next to the necessary intention and from the menu that opens, select Assign shortcut….
In the dialog that opens, specify 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.
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:
Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and select
.For each intention action, you can see a description and an example. To disable an intention, clear the checkbox next to it.
Apply the changes and close the dialog.
Disable intention actions on the fly
Click the light bulb icon (or press Alt+Enter) to open the list of suggestions.
Select the action you want to disable, click the right arrow next to it, and then click Disable <intention action name>.
Disable the intention action bulb icon
You can disable the intention action icon and the quick-fix icon in the editor.
Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and select
.Disable the Show intention bulb option, apply the changes, and close the dialog.