IntelliJ IDEA 2017.1 Help

Viewing Inline Documentation

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Basics

Quick Documentation Lookup helps you get quick information for any symbol or just method signature information, provided that this symbol has been supplied with documentation comments in the applicable format.

IntelliJ IDEA recognizes inline documentation created in accordance with Javadoc markup.

In this case, such documentation is properly rendered in the Quick Documentation Lookup window:

quickDocumentationLookup.png

For markup languages, IntelliJ IDEA retrieves reference from the language specification according to the Document Type setting.

The URLs and e-mail addresses specified in the documentation comments for methods are also properly rendered. Clicking a hyperlink opens the corresponding URL in an external browser; clicking an e-mail address opens the default mail client.

/help/img/idea/2017.1/ruby_quickDefinitionLookupURL.png

Viewing quick documentation

To view documentation for a symbol at caret, do one of the following

  • On the main menu, choose View | Quick Documentation Lookup.
  • Press Ctrl+Q.
  • Provided that the check box Show quick doc on mouse move in the editor settings is selected, just move your mouse pointer over the desired symbol.

When you explicitly invoke code completion, then quick documentation for an entry selected in the suggestion list can be displayed automatically. The behavior of quick documentation lookup is configured in the Code Completion page of the Settings/Preferences dialog.

To change the font size of quick documentation, do one of the following

  • Click /help/img/idea/2017.1/show-slider.png in the upper-right corner of the quick documentation window, and move the slider.
  • Rotate the mouse wheel while keeping the Ctrl key pressed.

    Note that for this feature to work, you have to enable it in the General page of the editor settings.

    /help/img/idea/2017.1/ctrl_mouse_wheel.png

    Refer to the section Zooming in the Editor for details.

Toolbar of the quick documentation lookup

The Quick Documentation Lookup window helps navigate to the related symbols via hyperlinks, and provides a toolbar for moving back and forth through the already navigated pages, changing font size, and viewing documentation in an external browser.

When pinned, the Quick Documentation Lookup turns into Documentation Tool Window, with the corresponding sidebar icon, and more controls.

IconShortcutDescription
/help/img/idea/2017.1/arrowBack.png /help/img/idea/2017.1/arrowForward.pngLeft or RightSwitch to the previous or next documentation page (e.g. after using hyperlinks).
arrowUp.png Shift+F1 View external documentation in the default browser.
/help/img/idea/2017.1/edit.png F4 Switch to the item (e.g. source) that corresponds to the documentation page currently shown.
/help/img/idea/2017.1/autoscrollFromSource.png Turn the Auto-update from source option on or off. When the option is on, the information in the tool window is synchronized with your navigation in the editor and other places in the UI.
/help/img/idea/2017.1/show-slider.png Click this icon to show font size slider. Move the slider to increase or decrease the font size in the quick documentation window as required.

See Also

Last modified: 18 July 2017