User Interface Guided Tour

When you first run CLion or have no project open, CLion displays the Welcome screen. When you open a project, CLion displays the main window.

This is the default (out-of-the-box) IDE interface layout. Depending on the set of plugins that you install and enable, the way your IDE looks and behaves may be different.

1. Main menu and toolbar — contain commands that affect the entire project or large portions of it, such as opening, creating project, refactoring the code, running and debugging applications, keeping files under version control and more.

   The main toolbar duplicates the main menu's essential commands for quicker access. By default, the main toolbar is hidden. To show it, select View | Toolbar from the main menu.

2. Navigation bar — a quick alternative to the Project Tool Window. Use it to navigate your project and open files for editing.

   Use View | Navigation Bar to hide or show the navigation bar; press Alt+Home to bring the application focus to the navigation bar.

3. Editor  — here you can read, create, and modify your code.

4. Tool windows — secondary windows that provide access to various specific tasks (project management, search, running and debugging, integration with version control systems, and so on).

5. Status bar  — indicates the status of your project, the entire IDE, and shows various warning and information messages.