IntelliJ IDEA

Get Your JDK As Easily As Possible!

Have you ever been in the situation where you’ve been looking for a specific JDK version of a specific distribution?

Sometimes that was easy… sometimes it was hard… but it never was fun.

After creating the Disco API (“Universal OpenJDK Discovery API”, in full) which serves up JDK distributions as a service, I had the idea to create plugins for IDEs to enable people to download the JDK of their choice more easily.

JavaFX: Gluon Status Update, Dual Screen on Raspberry Pi Sample, IntelliJ New JavaFX Project Wizard

Since Java switched to a 6-month release cycle, JavaFX has done the same, so next version will be number 17.

Keep in mind, although Java and JavaFX are on the same version-number, you can still use Java 11 and combine it with the JavaFX 17 runtime if you want to benefit from its improvements. Up till now, there were no breaking changes in either of the frameworks which force you to use a Java-version higher than 11.

Creating a Simple Spring Boot Application in IntelliJ IDEA

In this tutorial, we’ll use the New Project Wizard in IntelliJ IDEA to create a Spring Boot project with the Spring Web dependency.

We’ll also create a Spring Controller and served some text to the local Tomcat webserver.

Finally, we’ll add a test for our HTTP call.

Fix Java Security Issues While Coding in IntelliJ IDEA

Nowadays, developers are responsible for more than just creating the application. Besides working on features, developers have to focus on their applications’ maintainability, scalability, reliability, and security. Many developers are unsure of where to start with security. In addition, most companies still work with a dedicated security team instead of having security expertise inside the team.

A lot of developers practically live in their integrated development environment (IDE). A good IDE is like a swiss army knife: it is your go-to tool to do almost everything. Having everything I need to build, run, test, debug, and secure my application, makes a good IDE invaluable for many developers.

IntelliJ IDEA Changelists and Git Staging

Since the release of IntelliJ IDEA 2020.3, there are now two ways to manage your commits to Git.

The first one is with IntelliJ IDEA Changelists and the second is with Git staging.

This blog will take you through both approaches and highlight the differences.

Java 16 and IntelliJ IDEA

If you are still working with Java 8, you might have mixed feelings about the news of the release of Java 16. However, you’ll see these numbers are going to increment at a much faster and predictable rate with Java’s six-month release cadence.

I’m personally excited about Java 16! It adds Records and Pattern Matching for instanceof as standard language features with Sealed classes continuing to be a preview feature (in the second preview).

Fun fact – Records was voted the most popular Java 16 language feature by 1158 developers in this Twitter poll, with Pattern Matching for instanceof second.

In this blog post, I will limit coverage of Java 16 to its language features, why you need them, and how you can start using them in IntelliJ IDEA. You can use this link for a comprehensive list of the new Java 16 features. Let’s get started.

Working with Multiple Carets in IntelliJ IDEA

Sometimes you need to modify multiple lines of code on separate lines inside IntelliJ IDEA with the same change.

The fastest way to achieve that is with multiple carets that are either stacked vertically in a list, placed at the end of each line or positioned exactly where you want them in your code.

Generating Code with IntelliJ IDEA

One of the super cool things about IntelliJ IDEA is how much code you can generate with minimum effort.

There’s a Generate menu in IntelliJ IDEA that you can access with ⌘N on macOS and Alt+Insert on Windows and Linux.

Here’s a quick tour of some of the places where you can use it in Java projects in IntelliJ IDEA.

Git Archeology

Most people will start with using “git blame” (or the respective functionality within their IDE/editor).

But on most non-trivial projects, you usually end up with a refactoring commit, a rename, or a trivial cross-project fix like switching to another assertion library. At first glance, we only see the most recent changes, not the most important ones.

We need to carefully remove layer by layer of sand and dirt that has been swept over the real changes to unearth them.

IntelliJ IDEA: Beyond The Basics

IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate is the most powerful IDE for JVM developers in the market by now. It has support for various JVM frameworks, complex refactorings, Integration with VCS, and many more.

Java developers spend a tremendous amount of time in front of their IDEs. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed that developers don’t take advantage of IDEA’s powerful features.

In this article, I’ll talk about some tricks that I use in my day to day job. And show you some best practices that can boost your productivity.

3 Ways to Refactor Your Code in IntelliJ IDEA

In this blog, we’re going to look at 3 ways to refactor your code in IntelliJ IDEA.

Simplifying your code has lots of advantages, including improving readability, tackling technical debt, and managing ever-changing requirements. The three types of refactoring we will look at in this blog are:

– Extracting and Inlining
– Change Signature
– Renaming