Want more effective IntelliJ IDEA screen estate?

July 8th, 2011 by Eugene Toporov

Have you noticed a small new button in the bottom left corner of IntelliJ IDEA window since version 10.5?
It lets you have more space in the main frame and give more prominence to the editor by hiding the tool window bars.

With the tool buttons hidden you, of course, still can access the tool windows using their numeric hotkeys, e.g. Alt+1 for Project view, Alt+9 for Changes, etc.

But if you need to refresh them in your mind, or want to open one with the mouse, you can show the tool window buttons just for a moment. To do that, hit the Alt key twice (Command key on Mac), and keep it down — while the key is pressed, the tool window buttons are visible. Release the key — and they disappear again, leaving your main frame large and spacious.

Give it a try if you have not yet!

Tags: UI, Xena

This entry was posted on Friday, July 8th, 2011 at 9:43 am and is filed under New Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

10 Responses to “Want more effective IntelliJ IDEA screen estate?”

Mike Says:
July 8th, 2011 at 10:31 am
I hadn’t noticed that new icon. Nice! I like it!
Youri Says:
July 9th, 2011 at 3:31 am
Alt+1..9 does not really work for the french keyboard layout :/
Pavel Bernhauser Says:
July 9th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
And it works also in appCode! Perfect!
Thank you for this blog, I would not figure out double alt trick.
Tropper Says:
July 11th, 2011 at 9:51 am
It would be great if i could also click the window button after i double pressed the ALT key. The Maven window for example has no “ALT-x” keystroke by default.

Tropper
Eugene Toporov Says:
July 12th, 2011 at 4:32 am
@Tropper: You can click any button with a mouse after you double press the ALT key. Just keep the ALT down. Doesn’t it work for you?
Geekycoder Says:
July 12th, 2011 at 5:53 am
A little icon can mean so much !
s_oleg Says:
July 14th, 2011 at 7:21 am
Very very cool thing! Молодцы!
Tropper Says:
July 15th, 2011 at 4:03 am
@Eugene
Nope. But i’m using Linux with Gnome3. So i’m not sure if this is Idea problem or a linux problem. But now as i know that i should work i will give it another try…
trespasserw Says:
July 15th, 2011 at 6:18 am
@Tropper
Unfortunately the trick won’t work in Linux - as Alt + mouse events are usually used by window managers to manipulate windows.
Martin Krischik Says:
March 1st, 2012 at 6:43 am
Need. But pretty distressing if you accidentally click the button and all your tool windows disappear…