Valuable Non-bundled Plugins
CLion plugin repository contains over 1200 plugins that you can install to enrich the out-of-the-box CLion functionality. Some of those plugins are already bundled in CLion, and no prior action is required to start using them. However, there are other helpful and qualitative plugins that can improve or even transform your workflow in CLion. This article gives a selection of such valuable plugins.
The plugins are grouped by the tasks they target, each described in the corresponding chapter:
- Learn the IDE
- Get comfortable with the UI
- Tune the code editor
- Integrate more frameworks and build systems
- Add languages and file types support
- Facilitate Debugging
- Move towards the embedded
- Get profiling data
- Gather statistics
- Expand the scope of VCS-related actions
- Automate builds, track issues, and review code
- Stay creative and productive
Learn the IDE
Plugin | Description |
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CLion Help | Bundles the entire CLion web help for offline use. |
Keymap exporter | Prints the PDF version of the CLion keymap. |
Key Promoter X | Shows keystroke equivalents to mouse presses: |
Get comfortable with the UI
Plugin | Description |
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Main Menu Toggler | Switches visibility of the main menu on and off by a single action or a shortcut. |
Frame Switcher | Lets you switch between projects, windows, and frames, alternatively to Alt+Tab and the View menu. The switcher works even with multiple IDE instances, and lets you assign shortcuts to various actions, customizing or expanding the pre-defined shortcut set. |
Active Tab Highlighter | Highlights the currently active tab. The highlighting color is easily configurable, which is especially useful for the Darcula scheme. |
Focus on Active Task | Filters the project tree to show only the currently opened and related paths and files. |
As an example, here is how your CLion screen on macOS with Darcula scheme would look like with the filtered project tree, highlighted active tab, and the invoked frame switcher:
Tune the code editor
Plugin | Description |
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CMake Quickdocs | Makes the Quick Documentation pop-up available in CMakeLists.txt files. |
CMake Highlighter | Provides syntax highlighting and navigation for CMakeLists.txt files. |
Plugin | Description |
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Swagger | Helps in editing Swagger specifications. |
OpenAPI Generator | Generates client, server, and documentation code out of OpenAPI specifications. |
Plugin | Description |
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String Manipulation | Provides an assortment of actions for working with any kind of text: C/C++ code or comments, any ASCII symbols, JavaScript, SQL, XML, or text in other languages. |
String Realigner | Adds three string reformat actions: join, split, and wrap/unwrap strings. |
Shifter | Detects a selection, line, or keyword at caret and moves it up or down with a single keystroke. |
Plugin | Description |
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IdeaVim | Provides Vim emulation with features like motion keys, marks, registers, and visual mode commands. |
Emacs+ Patched | Adds two Emacs keymaps: Emacs+ and Mac Emacs+. |
Plugin | Description |
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Translation | Incorporates multiple language engines and supports text-to-speech. |
hunspell | Provides spell checking based on Hunspell dictionaries. |
Plugin | Description |
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EditorConfig | Helps maintain common code style across teams and IDEs: it enables the CLion editor to read the EditorConfig file format and adhere to defined styles. |
Integrate more frameworks and build systems
Plugin | Description |
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Conan CLion plugin | Lets you create and upload cross-compilation Conan packages in the lines of your CMake workflow: Learn more on how to work with Conan in CLion from this webinar and the related blog post Developing C/C++ projects with CLion IDE and Conan C/C++ package manager. |
Plugin | Description |
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Docker Integration | Enables you to download and build images, create and start containers, and manage other Docker tasks. See Docker Integration for detail. |
Plugin | Description |
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UE4 SDK Support | Adds extra completion options for reflection specifiers in Unreal Engine 4 code that CLion does not provide by default. Note that starting v4.20, Unreal Engine can generate a CMake structure out of your UE code and open it as a project in CLion. |
Add languages and file types support
Plugin | Description |
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Rust Support | Enables you to create and develop Rust applications and debug them using the Cargo build system. See the dedicated article for a thorough description of Rust support in CLion. |
Plugin | Description |
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Swift Support | Provides the Swift language and Swift Package Manager support, letting you use CLion as a fully-functional Swift IDE. |
Plugin | Description |
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Kotlin/Native for CLion | With this plugin, paired with Kotlin for core language support, you can edit Kotlin code and build, run, and debug Kotlin/Native applications. These two plugins add a whole new project model to the CLion’s list of the supported formats: |
Plugin | Description |
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Markdown Support | Helps in editing Markdown documents and shows the rendered HTML preview. |
gfm | Provides support for GitHub Markdown with GitHub-styled preview of your code. |
Plugin | Description |
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Makefile Support | Makes the GNU Makefile type recognizable in CLion, meaning that syntax highlighting and editing features become fully available: |
Plugin | Description |
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Protobuf Support | Helps you work with Google’s Protocol buffers (the *.proto files). |
Plugin | Description |
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BashSupport | Provides bash command language support. |
PowerShell | Adds PowerShell intellisense and scripts execution. |
Facilitate Debugging
Plugin | Description |
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Grep Console | Helps in analyzing logs and parsing console output. Grepping means searching for plain-text lines that contain a match to some regular expression. The plugin enables you to grep the application output, highlight and filter the results, and even change the output or execute an action upon a match: |
UndoDB | Integrates the Undo’s record, rewind and replay technology for Linux C/C++ applications in CLion. With Undo, you can record the program’s execution down to single instruction for further replay and analysis. This way, the debugger gets reversible: you can step forwards and backwards in your code and see exactly what is happening, leading up to easier bug capturing. Take a look at this blog post to find out more on using Undo in CLion. |
Run Configuration as Action | Lets you register Run/Debug configurations as actions in CLion, and call them via shortcuts or additional toolbar buttons. |
Move towards the embedded
Plugin | Description |
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OpenOCD+STM32CubeMX support | Lets you use CLion as an IDE for ARM MCU development, particularly for STM32. This plugin converts a STM32CubeMX project into a CLion project, lets you upload the binaries into compatible ARM MCU using OpenOCD, and debug on chip. Refer to these two blog posts for detailed explanations given by the plugin’s author: CLion for Embedded Development part I, part II. |
Get profiling data
CLion integrates the CPU Profiler available on macOS and Linux. It collects performance metrics for your application and visualizes them in ready-to-analyze flame graphs and call trees. However, if you need to explore the overall application behavior or report a performance issue, consider the plugins described below: they inform you about the CPU usage level and lets you generate thread dumps.
Plugin | Description |
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CPU Usage Indicator | Adds the CPU load indicator to the status bar, lets you get a thread dump and configure the settings of the Performance Watcher (which is the CLion’s frozen UI thread dumper): |
Performance Testing | Introduces Help | Diagnostics menu with options to get the performance summary about your hardware and capture CPU snapshots for indexing and test scripts execution: |
Gather statistics
Plugin | Description |
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Statistics | Collects the overall project-level statistics: project files with line counts, sorted by extension and size. |
Code::Stats | Tracks the changes you make in project files and detects the syntax of the language you use. The results are presented in infographics of your XPs (Experience Points, roughly the amount of keystrokes) for different languages. |
Completion Stats Collector | Sends the anonymized data of your code completion patterns to JetBrains developers. It helps the team implement machine learning algorithms and therefore improve completion efficiency. |
Expand the scope of VCS-related actions
Plugin | Description |
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Integrates the UI for the Git Flow branching model. | |
GitScope | Highlights the changed code, analogically to the |
GitToolBox | Enriches the default Git integration with features like Git status display, Auto fetch, Behind tracker, and others. |
Find Pull Request | Finds GitHub pull requests for the selected line. |
Provide templates for Git commit messages. | |
GitLab | Adds the GitLab-specific Checkout support and the dialogs of GitLab Share, Merge Request, and Merge Request List. |
GitLink | Opens files and commits to storages like GitHub or Stash in default browser via a single shortcut. |
Plugin | Description |
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SVNToolBox | Enhances the built-in SVN support: adds the Status Bar component, enriches the Project View, and provides more Subversion context menu actions. |
Visual SorceSafe Integration | Adds Visual SourceSafe settings and commands. |
Pre Commit Hook | Runs a custom pre-created script before any commit to ‘hook’ the changes. |
Automate builds, track issues, and review code
Plugin | Description |
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TeamCity plugin | Integrates the JetBrains’ TeamCity, a continuous integration server. This plugin lets you configure notifications, run builds and tests, view changes, assign investigations, and perform other TeamCity actions without leaving the IDE. |
Visual Studio Team Services | Enables you to work with Git and TFVC repositories on Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) or Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2015+. |
Wrike | Links your commits with the corresponding Wrike tasks. |
Plugin | Description |
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YouTrack Integration | Extends the bundled Task Management functionality to provide deeper integration with JetBrains' YouTrack bug tracker. |
Yandex.Tracker Integration | Integrates Yandex.Tracker. |
Mantis | Lets you create, edit, and delete issues from the Mantis bug tracker. |
Plugin | Description |
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UpSource plugin | Integrates the LetBrains' UpSource. |
Gerrit Code Review | Integrates the Gerrit Code Review tool. |
Plugin | Description |
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IDETalk | Helps in code-related communications between developers by providing functions like inside-the-IDE message exchange, getting and sending stack traces and ‘code pointers’ to your partner, view the partner’s opened files and differences between your files and theirs. |
Floobits plugin | Provides collaborative real-time development across multiple editors and IDEs for team members with Floobits accounts. |
Stay creative and productive
Last but not least, CLion plugin repository contains a collection of time management plugins, as well as other tools to increase your productivity. Find a few notable examples below.
Time management plugin | Description |
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Darkyen’s Time Tracker | Implements simple time management technique of tracking the time you actually spend on a project: it adds a tracking bar widget that you manually start for counting. |
Pomodoro-tm | Helps you manage the time spent on a task using Pomodoro Technique. |
Git Time Metric | Tracks the time of reading and working on the code that you store in a Git repository. |
WakaTime | Performs time tracking and collects the language, OS, branch/commit, and other statistics of your work session. |
Also, if you like mind mapping to visually structure your ideas, the IDEA Mind Map plugin will let you create and edit mind maps in MMD format right in CLion. With stackoverflow, you can search a line of code or comment in StackOverflow just by a right click.
And just for fun, try the Nyan Progress Bar to brighten the status bar when waiting for some of the time-consuming CLion actions to finish, or enjoy emojis in commits with the Emoji for Git Commits plugin.