IntelliJ IDEA 2024.1 Help

Migrate from Eclipse to IntelliJ IDEA

Switching from Eclipse to IntelliJ IDEA, especially if you've been using Eclipse for a long time, requires understanding some fundamental differences between the two IDEs, including their user interfaces, compilation methods, shortcuts, project configuration and other aspects.

Import an Eclipse project to IntelliJ IDEA

You can import either an Eclipse workspace or a single Eclipse project. To do this, click Open on the Welcome Screen or select File | Open in the main menu.

Welcome screen

If your project uses a build tool such as Maven or Gradle, we recommend selecting the associated build file pom.xml or build.gradle when importing the project. For more information about importing a project, refer to Import a project from Eclipse.

If you'd like to import your existing run configurations from Eclipse, consider using this third-party plugin.

Differences in user interfaces

No workspace

The first thing you will notice when launching IntelliJ IDEA is that it has no workspace concept. This means that you can work with only one project at a time. While in Eclipse you normally have a set of projects that may depend on each other, in IntelliJ IDEA you have a single project that consists of a set of modules.

If you have several unrelated projects, you can open them in separate windows.

If you still want to have several unrelated projects opened in one window, as a workaround you can configure them as modules.

IntelliJ IDEA vs Eclipse terminology

The table below compares the terms in Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA:

Eclipse

IntelliJ IDEA

Workspace

Project

Project

Module

Facet

Facet

Library

Library

JRE

SDK

Classpath variable

Path variable

No perspectives

The second big surprise when you switch to IntelliJ IDEA is that it has no perspectives.

It means that you don't need to switch between different workspace layouts manually to perform different tasks. The IDE follows your context and brings up the relevant tools automatically.

IntelliJ IDEA project overview

Tool windows

Just like in Eclipse, in IntelliJ IDEA you also have tool windows. You can find a full list of all available tool windows at View | Tool Windows. Selecting a tool window will open it. Tool windows are also accessible from the tool window buttons on the tool window bars.

Tool windows bars

If you do not want to use the mouse, you can always switch to any toolbar by pressing the shortcut assigned to it. The most important shortcuts to remember are:

  • Project: Alt+1

  • Commit: Alt+0

  • Terminal: Alt+F12

Another thing about tool windows is that you can drag, pin, unpin, attach and detach them:

Moving tool windows

For more information, refer to Arrange tool windows and Tool window view modes.

To help store/restore the tool windows layout, there are several useful commands:

  • Window | Layouts | Save Current Layout as New: save the arrangement as a new layout.

  • Window | Layouts | Restore Current Layout: reset changes in your current layout. (also available via Shift+F12)

For more information, refer to Layouts.

Multiple windows

Windows management in IntelliJ IDEA is slightly different from Eclipse. You cannot open several windows with one project, but you can detach any number of editor tabs into separate windows. To move the tab to a separate window, right-click the tab and select Move Tab to New Window (or press Shift+F4).

Always select opened files

By default, IntelliJ IDEA does not navigate to the file in Project tool window when you switch between editor tabs. However, you can enable it in the Project tool window settings:

Enabling the 'Always select opened file' option

General workflows

No 'save' button

IntelliJ IDEA has no Save button. Since in IntelliJ IDEA you can undo refactorings and revert changes from Local History, it makes no sense to ask you to save your changes every time.

Still, it is worth knowing that physical saving to disk is triggered by certain events, including compilation, closing a file, switching focus out of the IDE, and so on. To change the autosave behavior, open settings by pressing Ctrl+Alt+S and navigate to Appearance & Behavior | System Settings. On the System Settings page, find the Autosave section.

Configuring the system settings

Save actions

If you are an experienced Eclipse user, you are familiar with save actions: the actions triggered automatically on save, such as reformatting code, organizing imports, and so on.

IntelliJ IDEA also features save actions that you can find and enable in Settings | Tools | Actions on Save.

Settings: Actions on save

Actions on commit

When you commit your changes, you can run various actions automatically. For example, you can automatically run tests, reformat your code, optimize imports, and so on.

Committing changes to VCS

Compilation

The way IntelliJ IDEA compiles projects is different from Eclipse in a number of ways.

Auto-compilation

By default, IntelliJ IDEA doesn't automatically compile projects on saving because normally we don't invoke the save action explicitly in IntelliJ IDEA.

If you want to mimic the Eclipse behavior, you can invoke the Build Project action Ctrl+F9 - it will save the changed files and compile them.

You can also enable the Build project save action in Settings/ | Tools | Actions on Save.

Note that automatic compilation in IntelliJ IDEA differs from that in Eclipse. In Eclipse it's not fully automatic, as it is triggered by the save action invoked by the user explicitly, whereas in IntelliJ IDEA it is invoked implicitly when you type in the editor.

This is why, even if the Build project option is enabled, IntelliJ IDEA doesn't perform automatic compilation if at least one application is running: it will reload classes in the application implicitly. In this case you can call Build | Build Project Ctrl+F9.

Eclipse compiler

While Eclipse uses its own compiler, IntelliJ IDEA uses the javac compiler bundled with the project JDK. If you must use the Eclipse compiler, navigate to Settings | Build, Execution, Deployment | Compiler | Java Compiler and select it as shown below:

Configuring the Eclipse compiler

The biggest difference between the Eclipse and javac compilers is that the Eclipse compiler is more tolerant to errors, and sometimes lets you run code that doesn't compile.

In situations when you need to run code with compilation errors in IntelliJ IDEA, replace the Build option in your run configuration with Build, no error check by editing the run configuration and selecting Modify Options | Add before launch task | Build, no error check:

Running code with compilation errors

Shortcuts

IntelliJ IDEA shortcuts are completely different from those in Eclipse.

The table below shows how the top Eclipse actions (and their shortcuts) are mapped to IntelliJ IDEA (you may want to print it out to always have it handy).

Eclipse

IntelliJ IDEA

Action

Shortcut

Action

Shortcut

Code completion

Ctrl+Space

Basic completion

Ctrl+Space

-

-

Type-matching completion

Ctrl+Shift+Space

-

-

Statement completion

Ctrl+Shift+Enter

Quick access

Ctrl+3

Search everywhere

Double Shift

Maximize active view or editor

Ctrl+M

Hide all tool windows

Ctrl+Shift+F12

Open type

Ctrl+Shift+T

Navigate to class

Ctrl+N

Open resource

Ctrl+Shift+R

Navigate to file

Ctrl+Shift+N

-

-

Navigate to symbol

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N

Next view

Ctrl+F7

-

-

-

-

Recent files

Ctrl+E

Quick outline

Ctrl+O

File structure

Ctrl+F12

Move lines

Alt+Up/Down

Move lines

Alt+Shift+Up/Alt+Shift+Down

Delete lines

Ctrl+D

Delete lines

Ctrl+Y

Quick fix

Ctrl+1

Show intention action

Alt+Enter

Quick switch editor

Ctrl+E

Switcher

Ctrl+Shift+Tab

-

-

Recent files

Ctrl+E

Quick hierarchy

Ctrl+T

Navigate to type hierarchy

Ctrl+H

-

-

Navigate to method hierarchy

Ctrl+Shift+H

-

-

Show UML popup

Ctrl+Alt+U

Last edit location

Ctrl+Q

Last edit location

Ctrl+Shift+Backspace

Next editor

Ctrl+F6

Select next tab

Alt+Right

Run

Ctrl+Shift+F11

Run

Shift+F10

Debug

Ctrl+F11

Debug

Shift+F9

Correct indentation

Ctrl+I

Auto-indent lines

Ctrl+Alt+I

Format

Ctrl+Shift+F

Reformat code

Ctrl+Alt+L

Surround with

Ctrl+Alt+Z

Surround with

Ctrl+Alt+T

-

-

Surround with live template

Ctrl+Alt+J

Open declaration

F3

Navigate to declaration

Ctrl+B

-

-

Quick definition

Ctrl+Shift+I

Open type hierarchy

F4

Navigate to type hierarchy

Ctrl+H

-

-

Show UML popup

Ctrl+Alt+U

References in workspace

Ctrl+Shift+G

Find usages

Alt+F7

-

-

Show usages

Ctrl+Alt+F7

-

-

Find usages settings

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F7

Open search dialog

Ctrl+H

Find in Files

Ctrl+Shift+F

Occurrences in file

Alt+Ctrl+U

Highlight usages in file

Ctrl+Shift+F7

Copy lines

Ctrl+Alt+Down

Duplicate lines

Ctrl+D

Extract local variable

Ctrl+Alt+L

Extract variable

Ctrl+Alt+V

Assign to field

Ctrl+2/Ctrl+F

Extract field

Ctrl+Alt+F

Show refactor quick menu

Ctrl+Alt+T

Refactor this

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T

Rename

Ctrl+Alt+R

Rename

Shift+F6

Go to line

Ctrl+L

Navigate to line

Ctrl+G

Structured selection

Alt+Shift+Up/Alt+Shift+Down

Select word at caret

Ctrl+W/Ctrl+Shift+W

Find next

Ctrl+J

Find next

F3

Show in

Ctrl+Alt+W

Select in

Alt+F1

Back

Ctrl+[

Back

Ctrl+Alt+Left

Forward

Ctrl+]

Forward

Ctrl+Alt+Right

Eclipse keymap

In Settings | Keymap, you can choose to use the Eclipse keymap which closely mimics Eclipse shortcuts, in case you don't want to learn new shortcuts:

Eclipse keymap

Find action

When you don't know the shortcut for some action, try using the Find action feature available via Ctrl+Shift+A. Start typing to find an action by its name, see its shortcut, or call it:

The Find Action dialog

Coding assistance

Both Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA provide coding assistance features, such as code completion, code generation, quick-fixes, live templates, and so on.

Quick-fixes

To apply a quick-fix in IntelliJ IDEA, press Alt+Enter:

Applying quick-fixes

All quick-fixes are based on inspections configured in Settings/ | Editor | Inspections:

the Inspections dialog

Apart from outright problems, IntelliJ IDEA also recognizes code constructs that can be improved or optimized via the so-called intentions (also available with Alt+Enter):

Applying intention actions

Eclipse

IntelliJ IDEA

Action

Shortcut

Action

Shortcut

Quick fix

Ctrl+1

Show intention action

Alt+Enter

Code completion

IntelliJ IDEA provides different types of code completion, which include:

  • Basic completion

  • Second basic completion

  • Type-matching completion

  • Second type-matching completion

  • Statement completion

For more information about the differences between these completion types, refer to the Code Completion blog post.

Code completion

Eclipse

IntelliJ IDEA

Action

Shortcut

Action

Shortcut

Code completion

Ctrl+Space

Basic completion

Ctrl+Space

-

-

Type-matching completion

Ctrl+Shift+Space

-

-

Statement completion

Ctrl+Shift+Enter

Templates

You may be used to typing main in the editor and then calling code completion to have it transformed into a main method definition. However, IntelliJ IDEA templates are a little different:

Template

Eclipse

IntelliJ IDEA

Define a main method

main

psvm

Iterate over an array

for

itar

Iterate over a collection

for

itco

Iterate over a list

for

itli

Iterate over an iterable using foreach syntax

foreach

iter

Print to System.out

sysout

sout

Print to System.err

syserr

serr

Define a static field

static_final

psf

The list of available templates can be found in Settings | Editor | Live Templates. There you can also add your own templates or modify any existing ones.

Postfix templates

In addition to 'regular' templates, IntelliJ IDEA offers the so-called postfix templates. They are useful when you want to apply a template to an expression you've already typed. For instance, type a variable name, add .ifn and press Tab. IntelliJ IDEA will turn your expression into a if (...==null){...} statement.

To see a complete list of available postfix templates, go to Settings | Editor | General | Postfix Completion.

Surround with live template

The surround with templates is another addition that works similarly to live templates but can be applied to the selected code with Ctrl+Alt+J.

To define your own surround with template, go to Settings | Editor | Live Templates and use $SELECTION$ within the template text:

$LOCK$.readLock().lock(); try { $SELECTION$ } finally { $LOCK$.readLock().unlock(); }

Refactorings

The following table maps the shortcuts for the most common refactorings in Eclipse with those in IntelliJ IDEA:

Eclipse

IntelliJ IDEA

Action

Shortcut

Action

Shortcut

Extract local variable

Ctrl+Alt+L

Extract variable

Ctrl+Alt+V

Assign to field

Ctrl+2

Extract field

Ctrl+Alt+F

Show refactor quick menu

Alt+Shift+T

Refactor this

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T

Rename

Ctrl+Alt+R

Rename

Shift+F6

For more information about many additional refactorings that IntelliJ IDEA offers, refer to Top 20 Refactoring Features in IntelliJ IDEA

Undo

Sometimes, refactorings may affect a lot of files in a project. IntelliJ IDEA not only takes care of applying changes safely, but also lets you revert them. To undo the last refactoring, switch the focus to the Project tool window and press Ctrl+Z.

Below is a map of the most common search actions and shortcuts:

Eclipse

IntelliJ IDEA

Action

Shortcut

Action

Shortcut

Open search dialog

Ctrl+H

Find in Files

Ctrl+Shift+F

References in workspace

Ctrl+Shift+G

Find usages

Alt+F7

-

-

Show usages

Ctrl+Alt+F7

-

-

Find usages settings

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F7

Occurrences in file

Alt+Ctrl+U

Highlight usages in file

Ctrl+F7

The table below roughly maps the navigation actions available in Eclipse with those in IntelliJ IDEA:

Eclipse

IntelliJ IDEA

Action

Shortcut

Action

Shortcut

Quick access

Ctrl+3

Search everywhere

Double Shift

Open type

Ctrl+Shift+T

Navigate to class

Ctrl+N

Open resource

Ctrl+Shift+R

Navigate to file

Ctrl+Shift+N

-

-

Navigate to symbol

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N

Quick switch editor

Ctrl+E

Switcher

Ctrl+Tab

-

-

Recent files

Ctrl+E

Open declaration

F3

Navigate to declaration

Ctrl+B

Open type hierarchy

F4

Navigate to type hierarchy

Ctrl+H

-

-

Show UML popup

Ctrl+Alt+U

Quick outline

Ctrl+O

File structure

Ctrl+F12

Back

Ctrl+[

Back

Ctrl+Alt+Left

Forward

Ctrl+]

Forward

Ctrl+Alt+Right

Later, when you get used to these navigation options and need more, refer to Top 5 Navigation Keyboard Shortcuts in IntelliJ IDEA Shortcuts.

Call hierarchy

Both IntelliJ IDEA and Eclipse provide features that allow you to examine the hierarchy and explore the structure of source files. For example, the Call Hierarchy feature shows you all the callers and callees of the selected method.

In Eclipse, you access it by pressing Ctrl+Alt+H. In IntelliJ IDEA, use the Ctrl+Alt+H shortcut.

Call hierarchy in IntelliJ IDEA

Apart from call hierarchies, IntelliJ IDEA can also build method hierarchies (Ctrl+Shift+H) and type hierarchies (Ctrl+H). You can find more information in Source code hierarchy.

Code formatting

IntelliJ IDEA code formatting rules (available via Settings | Editor | Code Style) are similar to those in Eclipse, with some minor differences. You may want to take note of the fact that the Use tab character option is disabled by default, the Indent size may be different, etc.

Code formatting

If you would like to import your Eclipse formatter settings, go to Settings | Editor | Code Style | Java, click the Show Scheme Actions button, click Import Scheme and select the exported Eclipse formatter settings (an XML file).

Note that there may be some discrepancies between the code style settings in IntelliJ IDEA and Eclipse. For example, you cannot tell IntelliJ IDEA to put space after (but not before). If you want IntelliJ IDEA to use the Eclipse formatter, consider installing the Eclipse code formatter plugin.

Eclipse

IntelliJ IDEA

Action

Shortcut

Action

Shortcut

Format

Ctrl+Shift+F

Reformat code

Ctrl+Alt+L

Run and reload changes

Similarly to Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA also has Run/debug configurations dialog that you can access either from the main toolbar, or the main menu. Compare the related shortcuts:

Eclipse

IntelliJ IDEA

Action

Shortcut

Action

Shortcut

Run

Ctrl+Shift+F11

Run

Shift+F10

Debug

Ctrl+F11

Debug

Shift+F9

-

-

Make

Ctrl+F9

-

-

Update application

Ctrl+F10

As mentioned before, by default IntelliJ IDEA doesn't compile changed files automatically (unless you configure it to do so). That means the IDE doesn't reload changes automatically. To reload changed classes, call the Build action explicitly via Ctrl+F9. If your application is running on a server, in addition to reloading you can use the Update application action via Ctrl+F10:

Debug

The debuggers in Eclipse and IntelliJ IDEA are similar but use different shortcuts:

Eclipse

IntelliJ IDEA

Action

Shortcut

Action

Shortcut

Step into

F5

Step into

F7

-

-

Smart step into

Shift+F7

Step over

F6

Step over

F8

Step out

F7

Step out

Shift+F8

Resume

F8

Resume

F9

Toggle breakpoint

Ctrl+Shift+B

Toggle breakpoint

Ctrl+F8

Evaluate expression

Ctrl+Shift+I

Evaluate expression

Alt+F8

Application servers

Deploying to application servers in IntelliJ IDEA is more or less similar to what you are probably used to in Eclipse.

Deploy your application to a server

  1. Configure your artifacts via Project Structure | Artifacts (done automatically for Maven and Gradle projects).

  2. Configure an application server via Settings | Application Servers.

  3. Create a run configuration and then specify the artifacts to deploy and the server to deploy to.

For more information, refer to Application servers.

Build and rebuild your artifacts via Build | Build Artifacts.

Build tools

IntelliJ IDEA doesn't provide visual forms for editing Maven and Gradle configuration files. Once you've imported or created your Maven or Gradle project, you can edit its pom.xml or build.gradle files directly in the editor. Later, you can synchronize the project model with the changed files on demand, or automatically import changes to the new build files. Any changes to the underlying build configuration will eventually need to be synced with the project model in IntelliJ IDEA.

For operations specific to Maven or Gradle, IntelliJ IDEA provides the Maven Project tool window and the Gradle tool window. Apart from your project structure, these tool windows provide a list of goals or tasks plus a toolbar with the relevant actions.

Working with Maven

For manual synchronization, use the corresponding action on the Maven or Gradle tool window toolbar: .

Run goals/tasks

Use the Maven or Gradle tool window to run any project goal or task. When you do, IntelliJ IDEA creates the corresponding run configuration, which you can reuse later to run the goal or task quickly.

It's worth mentioning that any goal or task can be attached to a run configuration. This may be useful when your goal or task generates specific files needed by the application.

Running Maven goals

Both the Maven and Gradle tool windows provide the Run Task action. It runs a Maven or Gradle command similarly to how you'd run it using the console.

Configure artifacts

If you have a WAR artifacts configured in your pom.xml or build.gradle file, IntelliJ IDEA automatically configures the corresponding artifacts in Project Structure | Artifacts.

Note that when you compile your project or build an artifact, IntelliJ IDEA uses its own build process which may be faster but is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate. If you notice inconsistent results when compiling your project with Build in IntelliJ IDEA, try using a Maven goal or a Gradle task instead.

Version control systems

IntelliJ IDEA supports Git, Mercurial, Subversion, Perforce and other version control systems (VCS).

Configure VCS roots

When you open a project located under a VCS root, IntelliJ IDEA automatically detects this root and suggests adding it to the project settings.

  • To change version control-related project settings (or manually add a VCS root), go to Settings | Version Control.

    Working with VCS

IntelliJ IDEA works perfectly with multi-repository projects. Just map your project directories to VCS, and the IDE will take care of the rest. For Git and Mercurial, the IDE will even offer you synchronized branch control, so that you can perform branch operations on multiple repositories simultaneously. For more information, refer to Manage Git branches.

Edit VCS settings

Every VCS may require specific settings, for example, Path to Git executable, GitHub/Perforce credentials, and so on:

Editing VCS settings

Once you've configured the VCS settings, you'll see the Version Control tool window Alt+9.

Checking projects out

To check out a project from a VCS, click Get from Version Control on the Welcome Screen, or in the main VCS menu.

Working with local changes

The Changes view shows your local changes: both staged and unstaged. To simplify managing changes, all changes are organized into changelists. Any changes made to source files are automatically included in the active changelist. You can create new changelists, delete the existing ones (except for the Changes one), and move files between changelists.

Committing new changes to VCS

Right-click the unversioned file or folder you want to ignore in the Local Changes tab of the Version Control tool window Alt+9 or in Project tool window and select Git | Add to .gitignore or Git | Add to .git/info/exclude.

If you want ignored files to be also displayed in the Local Changes view, click the View Options button on the toolbar and select Ignored Files.

Showing ignored files

Working with history

The Log tab of the Git tool window lets you see and search through the history of commits. You can sort and filter commits by the repository, branch, user, date, folder, or even a phrase in the description. You can find a particular commit, or just browse through the history and the branch tree:

The Log tab of the Git tool window

Working with branches

IntelliJ IDEA lets you create, switch, merge, compare and delete branches. To access these operations, you can click the Git widget with the name of the branch that is currently checked out:

Git widget

All VCS operations are available from the VCS main menu:

Action

Shortcut

Version Control tool window

Alt+9

VCS operations popup

Alt+`

Commit changes

Ctrl+K

Update project

Ctrl+T

Push commits

Ctrl+Shift+K

Last modified: 17 June 2024