Search code examples
javaswingintellij-ideaintellij-plugin

Inspect UI in IntelliJ IDEs

I want to modify some UI in IntelliJ straight from the code (https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community), but I am having a hard time to identify which panel/class that particular UI component is.

Is there a way to tell "Hey, what panel is beneath the mouse cursor?"? - just like "Inspect element" in a browser.

The particular UI piece is the "file + line number" from the find panel: enter image description here

I've added the code from https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community and tried searching by strings found in the "Find" panel, but as I'm not a Java developer, haven't found what I'm looking for.

Solution

  • When running IntelliJ in internal mode (should be by default in your sandbox), you get the UI inspector under Tools > Internal Actions > UI > UI Inspector.

    The specific UI element you are looking for is hard to get this way though, because when transferring focus to the UI inspector you lose the find popup. My guess is that you are looking for an implementation of ItemPresentation, the one in PsiFileImpl might give you a good starting point.

    Edit. You can open the UI inspector for any UI element with the shortcut Ctrl + Alt + Click, where you click on the element you want to inspect.