JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA Blog

Because almost any template file has external references to context variables (and we’ll eventually find their declarations in code rendering that file), we need to introduce declarations for such implicit variables. IntelliJ IDEA helps us to do this in familiar comment-based way: @vtlvariable comment declares name, type and optional scope file for implicit variables; variable type is inferred from method and #foreach usages. Let’s have a look at the latter variant.
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As you probably know, there’s something special about developing applications with template languages (e.g. Velocity and Freemarker): lack of compile-time information prevents from resolving references to included files and library macros. But this is not a problem anymore — IntelliJ IDEA can help you with the use of specially crafted comments.

Let’s have a look at an example module: a.vm file includes b.vm file via velocity.properties file (i. e. relative paths contained in file.resource.loader.path property).

Press Alt+Enter on an unresolved file reference in a.vm and select a module-wide velocity.properties file declaration (looks most appropriate for a single file).

IntelliJ IDEA finds or creates an implicitly included file (any *.vm file that begins with #* @implicitly included *#) and inserts a @velocityproperties comment into it. Then you can select a velocity.properties file from a list of suitable ones found by IntelliJ IDEA.

The comment itself is quite simple:

#* @velocityproperties path=”<RELATIVE PATH TO VELOCITY PROPERTIES FILE>” runtime_root=”<RELATIVE PATH TO RUNTIME ROOT DIRECTORY>” *#
Base for these relative paths is a folder containing file with comment (in this case, velocity_implicit.vm).

When using FreeMarker or Velocity with IntelliJ IDEA, you sometimes need to change the underlying language for a template to enable coding assistance and syntax highlighting.

As with IntelliJ IDEA 8.1, you can open the Settings Dialog and select Template Data Languages to specify what language should be applied to a single template, or an entire folder containing template files. IntelliJ IDEA Velocity integration is also capable of determining the language by a double file extension (e.g. foo.java.vm or bar.css.ft).

In the upcoming EAP for IntelliJ IDEA 8.1.1 you will find another way of mapping files to various template languages: open the Settings dialog, select File Types, and click Add or Edit under Registered Patterns.