Trisha Gee

Tips to get you productive with the new or improved features in IntelliJ IDEA 2021.1

Understand how IntelliJ IDEA integrates with Maven.

Start by creating a brand-new project that uses Maven as the build tool

IntelliJ IDEA understands projects that use Maven and can import them with minimal configuration

Shortcuts used in the tutorial

The Maven Tool Window gives you access to goals, dependencies, and more.

Introduction to working with Maven and Maven projects in IntelliJ IDEA

Adding and visualising dependencies

Postfix completion allows you to keep typing forwards, it minimises the amount of time you spend moving the cursor around while you're coding.

Quickly move to the next (or previous) error or warning in the file.

Use Live Templates to auto-complete common code structures for you

Quickly open IntelliJ IDEA's tool windows without using the mouse, and easily find items in the window.

Context Actions are available from most places in the code.

Learn about the Spock testing framework by creating a project that uses Spock to unit test Java code

Writing our first Spock test

Start by creating a new Java project which will be the basis for the rest of this tutorial.

Often we want to test the same set of criteria with different sets of data. Data pipes is one mechanism to do this.

Data tables offer the same functionality as data pipes, but this syntax can sometimes be more readable for more complex sets of data.

Tests don't check just the happy paths, sometimes we want to say we're expecting a specific Exception.

See how Spock tests are usually structured.

Groovy's syntax and functionality might be unusual for Java developers to begin with, but it can be very helpful for testing.

Sometimes we need to move test code into a separate method. In this section, we look at some tips for this.

Introduction to the tutorial and links to further reading.

Spock supports a range of different test labels to help you write the most readable tests

Mocks are a useful testing tool. We can provide "empty" objects, so we don't have to initialise the whole application to test a section, and we can use mocks to check our code is making the calls we expect.

Add Spock framework dependencies to the project

See how to set up, or clean up, test classes and methods in Spock.

Finally, let's summarise the shortcuts we've learnt and see links to further information.

Spock tests don't just tell the computer how to test the application, they can help developers understand what the application is supposed to do.

Add the Spock plugin to IntelliJ IDEA to get some extra help in the IDE.

Stub objects allow us to state from a test what values get injected into our application code. They can provide simple interfaces, so we don't have to initialise the whole application to test a section.

Test frameworks often stop the test at the first failure. Find out how to run all conditions to see which pass and which fail.

Sometimes we want to check more than one value on an object. We can use `with` to do this.

There are several convenient ways to run Gradle tasks from IntelliJ IDEA.

Understand how IntelliJ IDEA integrates with Gradle.

Start by creating a brand-new project that uses Gradle as the build tool.

Add or update dependencies in your build.gradle file.

Where to change IntelliJ IDEA's settings fo Gradle.

How to find the Gradle tool window.

Useful information for working with projects that use the Gradle Wrapper.

Introduction to working with Gradle and Gradle projects in IntelliJ IDEA

What you need to know to get started with an existing Gradle project

Use a unique abbreviation to quickly navigate to the Gradle tool window

Shortcuts used in the tutorial

Understand how IntelliJ IDEA deals with Gradle's source set directories

Sometimes you may need to encourage IntelliJ IDEA to reload any changes from the Gradle configuration.

See how IntelliJ IDEA makes it easier to work with Gradle's configuration file.

Take a look around a standard Gradle project to understand it better.

How to set up or change a project's group ID and version number.

We spend hours looking at our code. We can make this as pleasant as possible.

Enforce architecture rules, such as data access layers not depending upon UI layers.

See how your application is performing with the built-in profiler

Set a Run Target to change where your code runs

Space is an all-in-one collaboration tool, including chat, code repository, code review, issue tracking, and much more.

Perform code reviews without leaving the IDE.

JVM developers working with Kotlin code can create UML diagrams for their Kotlin classes, just like they could with Java classes

Fully customise the checks you must perform before you commit your changes to version control

Sealed types are a new idea for Java developers, let IntelliJ IDEA guide you in how to create child classes

Sealed types are a new idea for Java developers, let IntelliJ IDEA guide you in how to use them

Data flow analysis is always being improved to show us potential errors in our logic.

Use IntelliJ IDEA to check if your JSON Path expression are correct.

See what your changes look like as you make them

Inspections can show us new features from Java 16

The latest versions of Java contain "Preview Features", features that are fully functional but require developer feedback. Try them out in IntelliJ IDEA.

Get up to speed on Java 16 with our top tips.

Use quick intentions to convert a record to a class

Use inspections to convert classes to Java 16 records

Create a new Java record class

IntelliJ IDEA will warn you if you're using deprecated methods, and they will be shown with a strikethrough if they're marked for removal

Inspections can guide us to use new Java features