IntelliJ IDEA 2019.2 brings Java 13 Preview features, services tool window & much more

It’s July and JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA’s second update, 2019.2, has been released. And its sights are already set firmly on the release of Java 13 in September. While there are a lot of updates exclusive to Ultimate users, there’s plenty of changes happening for everyone. Read on for more details.

Java

This latest version of the IDE supports the Switch Expressions preview feature put forward in Java Enhancement Proposal 354 and the Text Blocks preview feature from JEP 355.

A new Find cause action has been added to help find problematic areas of code by analysing the data flow to locate the source of the issue. Improvements have also been made to code completion, which can now offer suggestions for mistyped patterns.

Ultimate users will also benefit from improved duplicate code detection, which has been extended beyond Java to many other languages.

SEE ALSO: Keeping track of JDK 13

Services tool window

Another new feature is the Services tool window, which centralizes all the connections and run configurations set to report to the Services View. A live query timer can show the duration of each running query. The tool window can also display the file system of a running Docker container.

Gradle

Gradle code completion has been improved in build.gradle files; it now works for task declaration, notations, and inside dependency blocks. The output display for Gradle operations also now provides information about the current status of the sync/build process, and the status tree and output console are displayed side by side. They have also deprecated some of the Gradle settings options to make management easier, and the program will now automatically configure Gradle project settings.

Kotlin

In terms of Kotlin, the plugin used in IntelliJ IDEA has been updated to v1.3.41. A new interactive mode for scratch files can show the results of experiments without explicitly rerunning the script. And if external nullability annotations for Java are used, then IDEA warns you about incorrect usages of annotated Java methods from Kotlin.

Scala

Scala has also been hit with improvements to code completion and the highlighting of type mismatches. IntelliJ IDEA can now also wrap expressions as they are written. Finally, Build Server Protocol has been promoted from an experimental to a full-fledged feature, standardizing how build tools and IDEs communicate.

And even more

The list of changes goes on further, including shell script support, a better looking plugins page, and some tweaks to Groovy.

For a summary of the changes, check the JetBrains blog post, or for a full and granular breakdown head over to the What’s New IntelliJ IDEA page.

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