Project
On this page:
Basics
Whatever you do in WebStorm, you do that in the context of a project. A project is an organizational unit that represents a complete software solution. It serves as a basis for coding assistance, bulk refactoring, coding style consistency, etc.
WebStorm does not support direct editing of files on remote hosts. Therefore to work with remote sources in WebStorm, you need to download them, open the folder where they are stored, and arrange them in a WebStorm project, as described in Creating a Project from Existing Local Sources. To keep your local and remote sources synchronized, configure automatic upload using the Upload changed files automatically to the default server drop-down list in the Options dialog box.
Project Files
A project in WebStorm is represented in the Directory Based Format. A project directory is marked with icon.
Such project directory contains the .idea
directory, with the following files:
*.iml
file that describes the project structure.workspace.xml
file that contains your workspace preferences.- A number of
.xml
files. Each.xml
file is responsible for its own set of settings, that can be recognized by its name:projectCodeStyle.xml
,encodings.xml
,vcs.xml
etc.Thus, for example, adding a new run/debug configuration and changing encoding will affect two different
.xml
files. This helps avoid merge conflicts when the project settings are stored in a version control system and modified by the different team members.
All the settings files in the .idea
directory should be
put under version control except the workspace.xml
, which
stores your local preferences. The workspace.xml
file should be
marked as ignored by VCS.
.idea
directory is not visible in the Project view of the
Project tool window.
Project Types
The directory structure of each project contains the .idea
directory for the WebStorm-specific
settings and the project file, and libraries.
WebStorm suggests the following types of projects:
-
Empty project is intended for pure web programming.
The directory structure of
such project contains the
.idea
directory for the WebStorm-specific settings and the project file, and libraries.Create a plain web project as described in the section Creating Projects from Scratch in WebStorm.
-
Template-based projects are intended for developing web applications using
third-party frameworks. WebStorm creates specific infrastructure, with the files and directories
structured in accordance with the requirements of the selected framework.
- For client-side development, choose HTML5 Boilerplate, Twitter Bootstrap, Foundation, or Web Start Kit.
- For server-side development, choose Node.js Express App.
- Meteor App for both server-side and client-side development.
- PhoneGap/Cordova App for developing mobile applications intended for running on various mobile platforms.
- Web Start Kit.
- Dart applications.
Generating Dart application stubs requires that Dart is supported in WebStorm:
- The Dart SDK is available on your computer.
- The Dart plugin is installed and enabled. The plugin is bundled with WebStorm and activated by default. If the plugin is not activated, enable it on the Plugins page of the Settings / Preferences Dialog as described in Enabling and Disabling Plugins.
- Yeoman project generator, see Creating a Project Using Yeoman Generator.
Complete project creation as described in the section Generating a Project from a Framework Template.