PyCharm 2020.3 Help

Intention actions

As you work in the editor, PyCharm analyzes your code, searches for ways to optimize it, and detects potential and actual problems.

As soon as the IDE finds a way to alter your code, it displays a yellow bulb icon yellow bulb icon in the editor next to the current line. By clicking this icon, you can view intention actions available for this unit of code. Intention actions cover a wide range of situations from warnings to optimization suggestions. You can view the full list of intentions and customize them in the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S.

A red bulb with an exclamation mark the Quick-fix icon indicates that PyCharm has detected a problem, and prompts you to select an associated fix — a quick-fix. Quick-fixes and intention actions together are called context actions.

Apply intention actions

  1. Click the bulb icon (or press Alt+Enter) to open the list of suggestions and select an action from the list.

    For some intention actions, you can open a preview by pressing Ctrl+Shift+I (View | Quick Definition ).

    For example, PyCharm provides an intention that converts .format() calls and printf -style formatting to f-string literals.

    Intention action preview
  2. Press Enter to apply the selected intention.

    Intention action is applied

    The way f-string literals appear in the Editor depends on the corresponding Color Scheme settings. In the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S, navigate to Editor | Color Scheme | Python, select String | f-string in the list of components, and modify the available settings if needed.

View all intention actions

You can view the full list of available intention actions, and disable actions that you do not need:

  1. In the Settings/Preferences dialog Ctrl+Alt+S, go to Editor | Intentions.

  2. For each intention action, you can see a description and an example. To disable an intention, clear the checkbox next to it.

    Settings of intention actions
  3. Apply the changes and close the dialog.

Disable intention actions on the fly

  1. Click the light bulb icon (or press Alt+Enter) to open the list of suggestions.

  2. Select the action you want to disable, and click the right arrow.

  3. Select Disable <intention action name>.

    Disable intention action
Last modified: 09 March 2021