Intelligent syntax highlighting with IntelliJ IDEA 2024.2

JetBrains has released version 2024.2 of IntelliJ IDEA, which comes with a new interface and many useful AI tools for developers. At its core is now the JBR21 runtime, which improves security and performance and supports Wayland under Linux.

The new user interface, which was only available as an option in previous versions, now appears by default for all users after starting the program. The old version is still available on request as a plug-in, which the manufacturer intends to maintain for one year. The new design strives for clarity and creates space for a larger field of vision for the code. In return, the manufacturer has pushed advanced functions into the background, but the elements can be individually configured on request.

Developers can now accept or reject code suggestions from the IDE more intuitively and precisely. In particular, they can work through longer and multi-line suggestions step by step if required. Further improvements to the UI relate to the Linux desktop and the Everywhere search, which now shows a preview.

Artificial intelligence in the additional subscription

There are many new features in IntelliJ IDEA's intelligent assistants, although most of them require an additional monthly subscription. The automatic code suggestions are now visually structured with syntax highlights for Java, Kotlin and Python. Developers can also accept the AI's code suggestions step by step using Ctrl + right arrow (under Windows). The IDE also shows the AI code in parallel to the AI-less standard suggestions.

Developers who create code with AI commands in human language can now type them into the currently edited code block. Previously, this was only possible in a separate tab. The AI chat is based on GPT-4o

The IDE not only thinks along with the code, AI is also available in the terminal window, for handling merge conflicts in Git and for SQL problems. Users create custom prompts for the documentation. And intelligent test generation is now possible with classes (for Java, Kotlin, JavaScript, Go, Python, PHP, and Ruby).

Better performance with CPU info

Many other changes are not related to artificial intelligence: There are language versions for Chinese, Korean and Japanese. The run tool spits out more information about CPU and memory usage, which developers can use to improve the performance of their applications. The debugger allows you to jump to lambda expressions. The editor renders mathematical expressions in Markdown code natively.

The IDE improves collaboration with frameworks. With Spring, data JPA methods can be called directly from the code environment. There is automatic completion and ready-made examples for cron services for Spring, Quarkus or Micronaut. The HTTP client runs on GraalJS with improved performance.

A beta of the K2 mode is available for highlighting and completing Kotlin, which interested parties can activate via Settings/Preferences Languages & Frameworks/Kotlin. However, the mode has no influence on compilation. Finally, the Scala IDE works with version 3.

JetBrains has made many other changes to the build process, version control, database management and collaboration with frameworks. An initial overview can be found in a blog post from the manufacturer. Interested parties can download the latest build from the JetBrains website, via the Toolbox app or via Snaps for Ubuntu.

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