best intellij idea plug-ins

I've been using Intellij Idea as IDE for some time and wanted to share my favorite plug-ins as I think they can be quite useful for every developer out there. Without a specific order here they are:

Key Promoter X: Although its name's like cheap midi controller, it is a really useful plug-in for those who want to master intellij idea shortcuts. It shows notifications for almost each click you do and tells you its shortcuts. Also it holds statistics for you, so you have a list of most popular clicks and their corresponding keyboard shortcuts.

Lombok: This is the only plug-in in my selection that's specific to a programming language. Lombok is a java library that lets you boilerplate code with annotations. For instance, you can add @getter and have a getter for every field in your pojo. For a flawless experience with this java library, you will need the lombok plug-in. If you don't have a special need for upgrading to latest jdk with every version, I'll highly recommend lombok. If you always update to the latest, then lombok can be problematic as they don't support the new versions right away and there's no way to upgrade lombok if its version does not support your java version.

Sonarlint: You may already know sonarqube. It's a statistical analysis tool which finds code smells, potential bugs and so on in your codebase. Sonarlint is a plug-in that acts as a sonarqube server that runs inside your IDE. It's great for finding potential problems in your code without any additional step.

Rainbow Brackets: The idea is quite straightforward. This plug-in colors your parentheses for better readability.

Extra Icons: This plug-in provides additional icons for your project files. After this plug-in is installed, your gitignore file gets a git icon. Your mvnw and mvnw.cmd files have maven run icons and so on.

cool elasticsearch client

I was searching for an elastic client so I can have auto-complete for queries and a graphical way of seeing how things are going for our test elastic servers. Few years ago we had Sense plug-in which I think now a part of Kibana. After a little googling, I found head plug-in for chrome and it is so cool. I highly recommend it to everyone with this kind of need.

use maven on eclipse

Maven is a popular project management tool and it is quite practical to use it on Eclipse with the help of m2eclipse. To install m2eclipse in Eclipse:

1. Help > Install New Software.
   
2. Paste http://m2eclipse.sonatype.org/sites/m2e in "work with:" field and press enter
3. Choose the only component listed under m2eclipse
4. Click next and finish.

Notice that it's a good idea to install JDK so that Eclipse can work with it (instead of JRE) for a fully functional maven. I recommend Karol Zielinski's article for this.

netbeans 6.5 and struts 2

It is not really straightforward to add Struts 2 capabilities to Netbeans 6.5, so I'll try to explain it in details.

1. Go to nbstruts2support project's page and download two nbm files under the "release modules" folder.
2. Open netbeans 6.5 > tools > plugins > downloaded > add plugins. Then choose both nbm files and click next until the installation is complete.
3. You can now create java web projects with struts 2 framework support (Don't forget to tick Struts 2 on Frameworks window). Notice that you can automatically generate a "hello world" page using Struts 2.

javascript plug-in for eclipse

My favorite IDE for Java is Eclipse. So when I searched for a development environment for javascript, I checked if there's a javascript plug-in for Eclipse and the answer is yes. The installation is a piece of cake:

1. Eclipse > Help > Software Updates > Available Software
2. Type javascript in the search area
3. Tick the checkbox next to "Javascript Developer Tools" with latest version
4. Click Install