JetBrains Rider
 
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Automatic completion

Last modified: 11 February 2024

JetBrains Rider's automatic completion suggests names of classes, methods, variables, keywords, and any other symbols that are available within the current visibility scope including extension methods that were previously imported. Many other context-specific suggestions, like live templates, code generation suggestions, unit test categories are also available in the completion list.

By default, suggestions of automatic completion also include items from Second basic completion. If you want to change the default behavior, use the corresponding controls on the Editor | General | Code Completion page of JetBrains Rider settings CtrlAlt0S.

The list of auto-completion suggestions is the same as that of Basic completion, but it appears as soon as you start typing. As you type, the list narrows down to show only items that match what you have entered.

You can enable or disable auto-completion using the Show suggestions as you type checkbox on the Editor | General | Code Completion page of JetBrains Rider settings .

The best match in the auto-completion popup can be pre-selected either with hard or with soft selection:

  • Hard selection (blue in most color themes) lets you insert the selected item with Enter, Tab, Space, as well as dot, open parenthesis, open bracket, semicolon, and so on (depending on the context). Completion on Space can be enabled or disabled with the Whitespace inserts selected suggestion... checkbox on the Editor | General | Code Completion page of JetBrains Rider settings .

    JetBrains Rider. Auto-completion list with hard selection.
  • Soft selection (gray in most color themes) will gently highlight the best match, but it will not interfere with typing — you can either continue typing to close the popup or choose the desired item manually. But if you see that the highlighted item is suggested correctly, you can still insert it by pressing Tab. Optionally you can also use Enter for inserting the suggestion with the soft selection — this can be disabled by clearing the Enter inserts suggestion... checkbox on the Editor | General | Code Completion page of JetBrains Rider settings .

    JetBrains Rider. Auto-completion list with soft selection.

To choose the pre-selection mode, use the Preselect the best match to insert it by pressing dot, parentheses, and other keys checkbox on the Editor | General | Code Completion page of JetBrains Rider settings If selected, the best match in the auto-completion popup is pre-selected with hard selection, otherwise with soft selection.

When you use code completion over existing code items, you can either insert the selected completion suggestion before the existing item by pressing Enter or replace the existing identifier with the selected suggestion by pressing Tab. If necessary, you can change the default shortcuts on the Keymap page of JetBrains Rider settings CtrlAlt0S (look for the Choose Lookup Item and Choose Lookup Item Replace actions) .

By default, automatic completion support CamelHumps, that is you can type the initial letters of compound name parts and the name will appear in the list of suggestions.

When you select items in completion lists using keyboard, the selection will jump to the first item after the last item and vice versa. You can disable this behavior by clearing Cyclic scrolling in list on the Appearance and Behavior | Appearance page of JetBrains Rider settings CtrlAlt0S.

You can access code completion settings right from the completion popup — click at the bottom of the popup and select Code Completion Settings.