Braces, brackets & quotes auto-insertion

If you start a code block with an opening curly brace character and press Enter, the corresponding closing brace is automatically inserted with the indentation specified in your preferences.

When you type (, [, ", <, or ' in the editor a paired character is inserted automatically (whenever appropriate). This feature may be easily switched off, but you should not be afraid of inserting too many closing parentheses, brackets, or quotes by mistake: IntelliJ IDEA will recognize that the closing bracket or quotation mark already exists and will leave only one character printed.

Matched brace/bracket highlighting

Place the editor caret just after a closing (or just before an opening) brace or bracket of any type. If it is correctly matched, the matching pair highlights with light blue. If there is no matching bracket, the unpaired bracket highlights as a compile error. (You can change the default highlight colors in your configuration).

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Express code commenting

Quickly comment/uncomment a selected line or block with either block (/*...*/) or line (//...) comments using Ctrl + / and Ctrl + Shift + / shortcuts, respectively. Comments insert at the first column, or at the indentation level, depending on your code style settings.

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Extend/shrink selection

IntelliJ IDEA provides a convenient feature that allows you select the word at caret with a single shortcut (Ctrl + W). Subsequently pressing this key combination you can expand the selection up to a logical expression, method or class. Conversely, the Ctrl + Shift + W key allows you to shrink the selection back.

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Clipboard stacking

You can store multiple clipboard entries and access them with a single shortcut. The number of entries that can be stored in the clipboard stack is customizable through the IDE Settings.

Escape symbols are smartly handled when copying/pasting Java String literals.

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Code folding

Easily "fold" and "unfold" methods, Javadoc comments, or blocks of import statements, putting distracting detail out of your way. Fold/unfold a single block or everything in the file at once with a single key stroke (Ctrl + "+" / Ctrl + "-") or mouse click. Mouse over "folded" code icons to pop up the hidden detail for quick examination.

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Customizable menu, toolbars, and keyboard shortcuts

You can easily customize the appearance of the IDE toolbar, by adding/removing buttons, as well as form the menus by re-ordering and adding/removing items. Customizations settings dialog is organized straight-forward and is very easy to use.

Keyboard shortcuts are also fully customizable, and you can define your own keymaps to change existing keyboard shortcuts or assign shortcuts to any menu item or Java editor command. In addition to the default keymap, IntelliJ IDEA has three pre-defined keymaps emulating keyboard shortcuts for Mac OS X™, Emacs and Microsoft® VisualStudio™. Users also can define their own keymaps.

Find out customization example.

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Custom command lists

If there is a set of commands frequently used by you, while these commands are located under different main menu items, or just deep in the menu hierarchy, you can easily create named custom command lists and assign devoted shortcuts to them, for quick call of your famous actions directly from the editor.

Read more about custom lists.

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Quick switch of the current scheme

There is no need to dig deep into the settings dialogs hierarchy when you need to apply another Color/Code style Scheme, Keymap or even Look and Feel of the application. This can be achieved with a short series of shortcuts. Just press Ctrl + BackQuote and then the number of the scheme to change.

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