Although the book describes the latest version of IntelliJ IDEA - 14, most of the concepts will also work on the previous revision of the IDE.

Chapter 1, Get to Know Your IDE, Fast, is a very concise note on editions comparison, requirements and installing IntelliJ IDEA in Windows, OSX, and Linux. This chapter guides you through the main workspace and show you ways to customize it for different tasks, presenting briefly the most useful plugins, IDE settings, and configuration tips.

Chapter 2, Off We Go—To the Code, describes the process of setting up a new project or importing an existing one. The chapter explains terminology differences with NetBeans and Eclipse and presents the concept of modules and artifacts.

Chapter 3, The Editor, describes the core of IntelliJ IDEA—the editor. In this chapter, you use state-of-the-art code completion, templates, and other great IntelliJ IDEA features. This chapter shows how to set up the editor and gives you some productivity tips.

Chapter 4, Make It Better—Refactoring, presents the powerful refactoring toolset of IntelliJ IDEA. You are guided through the most useful refactoring techniques.

Chapter 5, Make It Happen—Running Your Project, covers configuring the runtime environment for your project. We also talk about adding run configurations, either on the server or standalone. This chapter focusses not only on Java, but on other technologies such as Node.js as well.

Chapter 6, Building Your Project, focusses on building a project. You use IntelliJ IDEA's own build system, and Maven and Gradle integration as well.

Chapter 7, Red or Green? Test Your Code, is all about unit testing in IntelliJ IDEA. We focus on setting IntelliJ IDEA up specifically to run tests. You create JUnit and TestNG run configurations and then run and debug the tests. Then, you are given a brief overview of the test runner windows, useful settings, and option suggestions.

Chapter 8, Squash'em – The Debugger, focusses on the IntelliJ IDEA debugger. You get familiar with the debugger tool window and debugger options. We look under the hood—evaluating expressions, using watches, conditional breakpoints, and other debugger features. We also talk briefly about remote debugging.

Chapter 9, Working with Your Team, This chapter is all about version control, and managing change lists and tasks. There is a brief description on how to set up VCS integration, with the main focus on Git. This chapter describes integration with popular bug trackers, such as JIRA and YouTRACK.

Chapter 10, Not Enough? Extend It, describes briefly the plugin architecture of IntelliJ IDEA. We talk about possibilities and develop a simple plugin, so that you have knowledge of how to extend the IDE. You are also presented with useful links and resources to develop your knowledge even further.

You will need a Mac or PC, running OS X, MS Windows, or Linux, to be able to set up and run IntelliJ IDEA. To learn the presented features, you will also need the tool itself, of course. You can use the free 30-day trial of Ultimate Edition or use the Community Edition, which is available free of charge. We will flag the differences and let you know what features are not available in the free version of the IDE. You can read how to get it in Chapter 1, Get to Know Your IDE, Fast.

This book is a fast-paced introduction to IntelliJ IDEA and is aimed at users who want to learn the essentials of the new IDE in a nimble and efficient way.

In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "If you keep getting OutOfMemoryError in PermGen space exceptions, try to change the -XX:MaxPermSize setting."

A block of code is set as follows:

private boolean isValid(int a) {
  return a > 15 && a < 100;
}

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

git clone git://git.jetbrains.org/idea/community.git idea

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "To do this, first download the IntelliJ Configuration Server plugin, using the Plugins page of the Settings dialog box."

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