Core Java

Live Templates in IntelliJ

As described here, IntelliJ’s live templates let you easily insert predefined code fragments into your source code.

I have posted some of my most used templates below, a link to my complete list of template files on GitHub (as a reference for myself when I setup new IntelliJ environments) and the steps I took to add the IntelliJ settings file to GitHub.

For example, I set up a template such that I can type test, hit tab, and it will insert this JUnit code snippet for me:
 
 

@Test
public void $NAME$() {
    $END$
}

It is a JUnit test method, with the cursor initially placed after “public void”, ready for typing the test name. The cursor then jumps to between the {}s, ready to start writing the test.

IntelliJ templates are stored in a user.xml file at

~/Library/Preferences/<product name><version number>/templates

For example, for IntelliJ13, it is

~/Library/Preferences/IntelliJIdea13/templates/user.xml

Some of my other templates are listed below, with the trigger in bold.
So that I can use these templates on any IntelliJ (e.g. work and home), I have checked my complete list in here at GitHub.

before

@Before
public void setup() {
    $END$
}

after

@After
public void tearDown() {
    $END$
}

nyi

fail("Not yet implemented");

puv

public void $NAME$() {
    $END$
}

main

public static void main(String[] args){
    $END$
}

Steps I took to add the IntelliJ settings to GitHub

First, I setup a new repo in GitHub at https://github.com/sabram/IntelliJ
Then, I followed some instructions from this StackOverflow posting on How to convert existing non-empty directory into a Git working directory:

cd ~/Library/Preferences/IntelliJIdea13
git init
git add templates/user.xml
git commit -m 'initial version of IntelliJ user.xml'
git remote add myIntelliJRepo https://github.com/sabram/IntelliJ.git

At this point, I got an error suggesting I needed to do a git pull first. But when I did a

git pull saIntelliJ

I got an error saying

You asked to pull from the remote 'saIntelliJ', but did not specify
a branch. Because this is not the default configured remote
for your current branch, you must specify a branch on the command line.

So, I edited .git/config based on this posting, to include

[branch "master"]
remote = saIntelliJ
merge = refs/heads/master

Then I was able to do

git pull saIntelliJ    
git push -u saIntelliJ master

successfully, and can just use git pull and git push going forward, with no need to specify the repo name (saIntelliJ) each time.

Reference: Live Templates in IntelliJ from our JCG partner Shaun Abram at the Shaun Abram’s blog blog.
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Wesslan
Wesslan
9 years ago

Live Templates are extremely useful and productive!

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