JetBrains Fleet 1.22 Help

Getting started

This is a quick tour around Fleet that shows how to do basic things to get you started. All you need to follow along is install Fleet on your computer.

You will learn how to start Fleet and do some basic personalization. Then you will use Fleet as a text editor and explore its text editing, search, and navigation features. Also, you will learn how to version your project files using Git.

Download and install Fleet

  1. Make sure you are logged in JetBrains Toolbox under your JetBrains Account.

  2. In JetBrains Toolbox, click Install near the JetBrains Fleet icon.

    Download and install Fleet

After you have installed JetBrains Fleet, you can start in from JetBrains Toolbox. You can also launch it from the command line.

Select color themes

You can customize Fleet appearance to your liking. Let's start with choosing the color theme.

  • Press Control ` to switch themes.

    Color themes preview

For more customizations, refer to Settings.

Tools and panels

All Fleet tools are organized in panels. Whenever you need to use a tool, for example, the terminal or debugger, you can open it in one of the panels.

UI overview

You can open tool panels using the buttons in the top-left corner of the window or by pressing Command 1, Command 2, or Command 3.

Work with files and folders

In JetBrains Fleet, there is no requirement to have projects for all your code. Instead, you can work with any folder and individual files as you would normally do in most text editors.

Open a folder

  1. From the workspaces menu, select Open in New Workspace.

    Workspaces menu
  2. Select a directory.

    File chooser

When you open a directory, it becomes the root of a workspace. You can view its contents in the Files view.

The Files view in the left panel

Create a file

  1. Select a directory in the Files view and pressCommand N. Alternatively, right-click the directory and select New file.

  2. Give the file a name and an extension.

    A tab for the new file

Edit text

At its core, Fleet is a lightweight text editor, well suited for viewing and editing individual text files. Let's look at some of the Fleet editor features:

Split view

  • It is sometimes convenient to work in several tabs side-by-side. To do that, drag a tab to an editor side (for vertical split) or to editor top or bottom (for horizontal split).

    Two files viewed simultaneously in the same editor

Multiple carets

You can make changes to your text in several places simultaneously using additional carets. To create additional carets, do one of the following:

  • Press Command Alt ArrowUp or Command Alt ArrowDown to respectively add carets above or below the current one.

  • Hold Alt+Shift and click the places where you want to add carets

With multiple carets, you are not limited to typing: you can copy, paste, auto-complete words, and so on.

Multiple carets in the editor

Expand and shrink selection

  • You can expand and shrink selection at caret based on text or code structure. Use Alt Shift ArrowUp and Alt Shift ArrowDown for that.

Whenever you want to perform a full-text search, navigate to a class, or just don't remember how to do something in Fleet, the Go to dialog is the right tool.

  • Press Command K and select the required tab with Control Tab.

    Goto panel

Version control

You can commit and manage your Git repository from Fleet.

  1. Open the terminal Control Shift ` and run the following commands:

    git init echo "Hello" > greeting git add . git commit -m "first commit"

    This will initialize a Git repository in the workspace, create a text file, and add the entire workspace to version control. You can omit this step and use your own Git-enabled project instead.

  2. Make some changes to the text file:

    Editing a text file

    A blue circle appears in the Files view near this file, indicating there are uncommitted changes.

  3. In the Files view, go to the Git tab, make sure that the change is selected, and click Commit.

    Editing commit message in the Git panel

You can view commit details and diffs in the History tab:

Viewing diff in the editor

Work with code

With the Smart Mode JetBrains Fleet turns into a polyglot IDE. For working with code, see the following tutorials covering the supported languages:

Last modified: 31 August 2023