JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA Blog

Upcoming IntelliJ IDEA version, Maia brings you an improved version of the Dataflow to this feature and the completely new Dataflow from this.

Here I am describing how these features work and how they can help you the Code Archeologists better understand your code.

I am using Apache Tomcat source code as an example.
Let’s have a look at the SingleSignOnMessage class and its obscure String authType field.

(more…)

As you all know, JDK 7 includes new java syntax for Annotations on Types (JSR-308)

To enable JSR-308 support in Maia, set the Java language level level to 7:

Then you can declare and use your weird type annotations almost everywhere:

To enable type annotations compilation in IntelliJ IDEA, download the latest Open JDK build, patch it as described in Type Annotations Prototype Implementation FAQ, and attach it to an IntelliJ IDEA project via Project SDK on Project tab in the Project Structure dialog (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S).

Maia brings you an improved Show Usages popup (Ctrl+Alt+F7):

• Filter buttons let you show or hide usages right from the popup
• Open Find Usages Tool Window button shows all usages in a tool window like Find Usages command
• Options button lets quickly select a scope and adjust other search settings
• Paging through usages provides for quicker appearing and does not clutter the screen

Thanks to improvements in the internal indexes behind the Intellij IDEA code insight engine, Maia will be able to instantly highlight some java classes, methods and fields which are unused across the entire project.

To use the feature, enable the Unused declarations inspection.

Of course, all sorts of JEE @Inject annotations, test code entry points
and other implicit dependencies configured in the Unused declarations inspection
are deeply respected.