Scope

A scope is a subset of files, and/or directories in your project, to which you can limit the application of specific operations, for example search, code inspection, etc. Besides, you can configure coloring for each scope to see at once what sort of file you are dealing with.

Scopes get more helpful as your project grows larger. There is a number of predefined scopes that cover basic cases. Additionally, it is possible to add custom scopes to your project. For example, you can create custom scopes for tests or for the files you are responsible for in your team.

Types of scopes

Scopes can be either shared or local:

Local scopes are intended for personal use only and are stored in your workspace in the workspace.xml file under .idea.
Shared scopes are accessible for the team members via VCS and are stored at the project level. in the scopes directory under .idea, as a file with the .xml extension, that is .idea/scopes/<scope_name>.xml.

You can quickly share a local scope (or make a shared scope local) by using the Share through VCS checkbox on the Appearance & Behavior | Scopes page of the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S.

Defining scopes

GoLand provides a special language that enables you to flexibly define the sets of entities included in a scope.

To create and edit scopes, use the Scopes page of the Settings/Preferences dialog.

Scopes are defined in the following modes:

Manually, by specifying file masks according to the scope language syntax in the Pattern field.
By selecting files and folders and clicking the buttons Include, Include Recursively, Exclude, and Exclude Recursively. Based on the inclusion/exclusion, GoLand creates an expression and displays it in the Pattern.

To view the available scopes, click the (next to the Project header of the Project Tool Window.

Scopes coloring

Files that belong to different scopes can be highlighted in different colors throughout the GoLand's user interface: in navigation lists, in the editor tabs, in the Project Tool Window. This allows much faster and easier navigation in large projects.

If some file is included into several scopes, the order of the scopes becomes important: GoLand uses the color of the uppermost scope (shown in the Scopes settings page) to highlight such file. Of course, you can change the order of the scopes, and thus the resulted highlighting.

Predefined scopes

GoLand provides a number of predefined scopes, for example:

Project Files. This scope includes all the files within the project content roots generally, are not included in this scope.
Problems. This scope includes the files within the project content roots in which syntactic errors are found.
Project and Libraries. This scope includes all the files within the project content roots, and also all module dependencies, libraries and SDKs.

In the Project Tool Window, this scope corresponds to the scope view All.
Project Production Files. This scope is similar to the Project Files scope. The difference is that the test source roots are not included. In the Project Tool Window, this scope corresponds to the scope view Production.
Project Test Files. This scope is limited to the project test source roots. In the Project Tool Window, this scope corresponds to the scope view Tests.
Non-Project Files. This scope is available only as a view in the Project Tool Window. It is limited to libraries and SDKs.
Changed Files. This scope corresponds to all changed files, that is, ones associated with all existing changelists.
Default. This scope corresponds to the files associated with the Default changelist.
Favorite'<name>'. This scope corresponds to a list of favorite items with the specified name.
Open files.This scope corresponds to the files opened in GoLand editor.
Current file. This scope corresponds to the file currently active in GoLand editor.
Selected files. This scope corresponds to the files currently selected in GoLand (for example in the Project Tool Window).

Predefined scopes cannot be edited.

Last modified: 23 March 2020