CLion 2023.2 includes the AI Assistant feature, weaving it naturally into some of the core IDE user workflows. In C and C++, it explains the selected code, suggests how to better refactor that code fragment, or finds potential problems with it. It also generates commit messages and explains CMake errors.

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Low-level debugging is easier with CLion 2023.2, which brings the ability to inspect the registers of the current frame. You can also see register values inlined right in the disassembly view. A major update to the Attach to Process dialog enables attaching to remote and WSL processes.

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PlatformIO is an open-source platform that helps embedded developers with their projects. CLion 2023.2 integrates natively with the platform. The IDE works directly with the platformio.ini file, tracking changes in it and updating the project information accordingly.

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vcpkg is one of the most widely adopted package managers in C++. When working with vcpkg, there are two approaches – Classic mode and Manifest mode. CLion 2023.2 supports both. You can clearly distinguish them in the CLion UI and switch easily to the Manifest mode using a dedicated button.

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AI Assistant prefers programming topics and benefits from project-specific context. Iterate in the new dedicated tool window, and when you’re happy with the result, use Insert Snippet at Caret to put the AI-generated code in the editor – or just copy it over manually.

Select a specific code fragment in the editor and invoke an action from the AI Actions... context menu.

AI Assistant can help you:

• Find potential issues in a selected code fragment.
• Suggest how to better refactor that fragment.
• Explain the selected code.
• Start a new AI chat about the selected code.

Let AI Assistant help you describe the changes you made. Clicking the Generate Commit Message with AI Assistant button in the commit message dialog will send the diffs of your changes to the LLM, and it will generate a commit message describing your changes.

When CMake execution fails on your project, click Explain with AI in the CMake tool window to get a better understanding of what’s gone wrong and how to fix it.

The Attach to Process dialog allows users to debug processes launched outside of CLion – locally or remotely – but also benefit from the IDE’s debugger integration.

From v2023.2 you can:

• Attach to local, remote, and WSL processes.
• Select any debugger configured in the toolchains.
• Attach to processes launched remotely with administrative privileges.

Low-level debugging is easier when you have the ability to inspect the registers of the current frame. CLion now shows register values in the Variables tab of the debugger tool window.

CLion now supports ARM assembly languages, which means you’ll see code highlighting for ARM assemblers in the disassembly view.

When debugging disassembly code, CLion now shows register values inlined right in the disassembly view.

PlatformIO is an open-source platform that helps embedded developers with their projects. In CLion 2023.2, the intermediate CMake level was removed from the integration with PlatformIO. The IDE now works directly with the platformio.ini file, tracking changes in it and updating the project information accordingly.

Learn how to install the PlatformIO plugin and create a new project or open an existing one with it in our webhelp.

Some pio commands can now be invoked directly from the IDE (Tools | PlatformIO) – no need to switch to the terminal. This includes project reloading, running static code analysis on the project, invoking the device monitor, and more.

The PlatformIO tool window gives quick access to the most used commands and project actions.

When working with vcpkg, there are two approaches – Classic mode and Manifest mode. You can now clearly distinguish them in the CLion UI and switch easily to the Manifest mode using a dedicated button.

To make vcpkg’s Classic mode more convenient, we added a Console tab to the vcpkg tool window to show all commands and output.

CLion 2023.2 improves the new C/C++ file creation dialog in cases when there is no CMake target to add the new file to. The new Add new target... action creates a new target and adds it to the selected CMakeLists.txt file. After adding a target, you can then add new files to it.

CLion 2023.2 adds highlighting and completion for new parameters from CMake 3.25 and for the new block command used to execute a group of commands in a requested scope. In CLion, the new command is now highlighted, formatted, folded, and documented correctly.

CLion 2023.2 comes with CMake 3.26 bundled.

For v2023.2, we’ve refined the user experience with the Light theme by introducing the alternate Light with Light Header option, featuring matching light colors for window headers, tooltips, and notification balloons.

To make managing multiple run configurations easier, we’ve implemented the option to pin preferred configurations in the Run widget.

When working on macOS in full screen mode using the new UI, the window controls are now displayed right in the main toolbar – not in the floating bar as before.

For the convenience of Linux users, the native header of the operating system has been removed in the new UI, resulting in a cleaner interface. By default, you will now see the custom IDE header, which offers a range of customization options to tailor your workspace.

CLion introduces colored headers to simplify navigation between several open projects. You can now assign a unique color and icon to each of your projects, making it easier to distinguish between them in your workspace.

We’ve expanded the customization options for the new UI’s main toolbar. You can now use a dropdown menu to quickly choose actions that you want to add to the toolbar. To do so, right-click on any widget, select Add to Main Toolbar, and explore the available options.

CLion debugger integration got a major update bringing you powerful debugging abilities that include:

• The ability to explore the underlying assembly code even when the source code is available (aka disassemble on demand).
• A reworked Attach to Process... dialog to make finding processes and attaching to them even easier and faster.
• Actions to suspend or resume individual threads, to help debug multithreaded applications.

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vcpkg is a package manager that’s growing in popularity among C++ developers. CLion now integrates with it, assisting with installing and updating vcpkg and its packages and browsing installed and available packages in the dedicated tool window.

CLion helps with the missing dependencies by suggesting quick-fixes when you:

• add #include for the header file from a package that is not yet installed.
• use a package in a CMake script that is not yet installed.

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To speed up the Find Usages action and make it produce more accurate results in C++ code, a brand-new Clangd indexer was introduced in CLion. Enable it in Settings/Preferences | Advanced Settings | Clangd | Use Clangd-based indexer.

Note that the indexer is still in its early stage of development and is considered experimental. Check out the online help for the list of known issues and limitations.

The new UI has less visual clutter and shows the starting points for powerful features more concisely. In v2023.1, we’ve fine-tuned the user experience of the new UI by redesigning the Run widget, adding an option to show hidden tabs and an option to split tool windows vertically, bringing a new Compact Mode for smaller screens, and other changes.

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CLion debugger allows you to step into and debug the disassembled code in a dedicated view. Now even when the source code is available.

In the context menu in the frames view, there is now a new action that opens a regular disassembly view for the selected frame. The view opens side-by-side with the source code and highlights the execution line in both.

Read about known issues and limitations.

CLion provides a way to attach the debugger to local processes started outside the IDE. The updated Attach to Process... action’s dialog now makes finding processes and attaching to them even easier and faster.

Display all available processes as a list or a tree in a new table view, check out the name of the user who launched the process, the debuggers available for this process, and the command used to launch the process, and select a debugger for toolchains that support multiple debuggers. Find out more.

CLion now highlights all changed bytes in the memory view during debugging. Also, when scrolling through the memory view, CLion now automatically loads the data.

The number of columns in the Memory View (i.e., the number of bytes per line) is configurable now. Click on the settings icon in the view to change it.

CLion 2023.1 adds an action to help you create a new C++ Module Interface Unit in your project.

In the dialog that opens, enter the module name and type (extension), and specify whether you want CLion to add the newly created module to the existing CMake target. CLion will create a new module file using the file template from Settings/Preferences | Editor | File and Code Templates.

The Change Signature and Extract Function refactorings now support making a function const, constexpr, or noexcept.

The Extract Constant refactoring now suggests declaring a new constant with the constexpr and auto specifiers.

If you are using Qt Modeling Language (QML) in your code, you will now benefit from the QML syntax support in CLion. This includes:

• A better editing experience with code highlighting and code completion.
• Instant search for usages.
• Structure View for easier navigation in QML files.
• The Quick Documentation popup for information about the symbols under the caret.

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QML syntax support in CLion works for both Qt5 and Qt6. CLion uses qmlformat to format QML code by default.

Qt and QML paths, qmlformat as a formatting tool, and QML language server can be configured in Settings/Preferences | Languages & Frameworks | QML.

The Call Tree tab in the profiling results now allows you to collapse any frames you’re not interested in. For example, you can hide library classes or classes from specific frameworks to help yourself focus on the application code.

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You can now filter files in the Coverage view to focus on recently updated files when testing. By default, you’ll see a list of files with uncommitted changes.

New color settings have been added for CMake – one for scripts’ keywords and one for CMake arguments’ keywords.

The CMake reload notification is now floating. It takes less editor space while still being noticeable.

To improve the user experience with CLion’s new UI on smaller screens, we’ve introduced Compact Mode, which provides a more consolidated look and feel of the IDE thanks to scaled-down spacings and elements.

We’ve refined the IDE’s look and feel when the new UI is enabled. The top toolbar is no longer visible in Zen and Distraction Free modes.

CLion 2023.1 features a new Dark theme activated by default when the user enables the new UI.

The Run widget in the main window header has been redesigned so that its appearance is unobtrusive and easier on the eyes.

Users of the new UI can now see the full list of open editor tabs. It’s accessible via the Show Hidden Tabs selector located at the right-end of the tabs row.

The new UI now offers an option to vertically split the tool window area and conveniently arrange these windows, just like in the old UI.

You can now zoom into and out of CLion entirely, increasing or decreasing the size of all UI elements simultaneously. Select View | Appearance and adjust the IDE’s scaling. You can also assign custom shortcuts for calling these actions in Settings/Preferences | Keymap | Main Menu | View | Appearance.

With CLion 2023.1, you can save and manage several tool window layouts and switch between them when needed. With the new Window | Layouts menu, you can save the current layout as a new one, update the already saved layout, or activate a previously saved layout.

A new layout option allows you to unify the width of the side tool windows or retain the ability to freely adjust their sizes as you customize your layout. The new Remember size for each tool window checkbox is available in Settings/Preferences | Appearance | Appearance & Behavior | Tool Windows.

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You can now predefine the behavior of Actions on Save for new projects. For this, go to File | New Projects Setup | Preferences For New Projects | Tools | Actions on Save and select which actions you want to be triggered when saving changes in your future projects.

Where would you like to paste a line that was copied or cut without selection? In CLion, there is now a special setting that allows you to control the placement of the pasted content. In Settings/Preferences | Advanced Settings, find the Editor section and select the desired behavior for the Paste action from the drop-down list.

CLion 2023.1 features a new Selection checkbox in Settings/Preferences | Editor | General | Appearance | Show Whitespaces that allows you to configure this setting so that the IDE shows whitespaces as small dots only when you select code.

To make tracking changes to files more convenient, we’ve added color hints to the Structure tool window.

The names of modified objects will now become blue, and the names of the newly added objects will appear in the tool window highlighted in green.

CLion 2023.1 provides auto-completion in the Create New Branch popup. Once you start typing a name for your new branch, the IDE will suggest relevant prefixes based on the names of existing local branches.

In the Branches popup, branches are now grouped and stored in expandable lists for easier navigation.

A new intention action allows you to correct the formatting of tables in Markdown files. You can access the quick-fix via the Context actions shortcut (Alt+Enter) or by pressing the yellow bulb icon and selecting Reformat table from the list that appears.

The Fill Paragraph editor action is now supported for Markdown files, allowing you to break long texts into several lines of even length. To do this, set the caret inside the paragraph you want to edit and call the action from the Edit menu or search for the Fill Paragraph command using Find Action.

Learn more about CLion’s support for C++20 modules and the known limitations.

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To improve the performance of remote development with local sources, CLion now uses pigz (a multithreaded gzip implementation) for compression on the remote host to synchronize the header search paths back to the local host.

For remote development with local sources, you can avoid the CMake build folder synchronization after CMake reload by selecting the Local or mounted folder deployment type in Settings | Build, Execution, Deployment | Deployment.