Viewing Inline Documentation
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:
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.
Viewing quick documentation
To view documentation for a symbol at caret, do one of the following
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.
- On the main menu, choose .
- Press Ctrl+Q.
- Provided that the checkbox Show quick doc on mouse move in the editor settings is selected, just move your mouse pointer over the desired symbol.
To change the font size of quick documentation, do one of the following
- Click 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.
Refer to the section Editor basics for details.
Documentation window
The Documentation pop-up 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 Documentation pop-up window turns into the Documentation tool window, with the corresponding sidebar icon, and more controls.
To switch between the Documentation pop-up window and the Documentation tool window, use Ctrl+Q.
Icon | Shortcut | Description |
---|---|---|
Left or Right | Switch to the previous or next documentation page (e.g. after using hyperlinks). On a macOS computer, you can also use the three-finger right-to-left and left-to-right swipe gestures. | |
Shift+F1 | View external documentation in the default browser. | |
F4 | Switch to the item (e.g. source) that corresponds to the documentation page currently shown. | |
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. | ||
Click this icon to show the font size slider. Move the slider to increase or decrease the font size in the quick documentation window as required. |