The Stanford NLP (Natural Language Processing) Group

Getting started with IntelliJ

This tutorial will walk you through the steps to set up and start working with JavaNLP using JetBrains' IntelliJ IDE. The top part has getting started instructions for checking out all of the 2008 JavaNLP reorganization as a multi-module project, including using Java 6 with it on the Mac. Beneath the horizontal rule is older material, some of which is now dated. (The useful older material should be integrated at some point.)

IntelliJ is fast. After using the bloated beast that is Eclipse, using IntelliJ makes my neural receptors hum with delight. Loading up and switching between projects is faster. Setting preferences is faster. Tweaking the classpath, refactoring, searching for references, and generating code coverage reports: all faster. -- macjavadev

Instructions for running IntelliJ on a Mac after the 2008 reorganization

These instructions set me up with the whole of the reorganized JavaNLP, using Java 6 to compile under IntelliJ IDEA 7.0.3 under Mac OS X 10.5. I've now put in JavaNLP IntelliJ module specification files (*.iml) files. I think they may be used when you do the checkout, and so a few of these things you might no longer have to do (let me know if you try this).

If you have an existing JavaNLP checkout and want to use the same path, move or delete it.
Download SoyLatte from here. I installed the 32 bit binary (not enough memory in my Mac for 64 bit to be sensible....) Alternatively, it should also work to install the Apple Java SE 6 preview if you want.
Unpack SoyLatte. I unpacked it in ~/Software, but anywhere should work.
Download IntelliJ from here, if you haven't already. Drag the application to your applications folder.
At some point you'll want to give IntelliJ more memory, so you may as well do it now. edit /Applications/IntelliJ IDEA 7.0.3.app/Contents/Info.plist and change the line:
<string>-Xms16m -Xmx256m -XX:MaxPermSize=120m -Xbootclasspath/p:../lib/boot.jar -ea</string>
to perhaps
<string>-Xms32m -Xmx320m -XX:MaxPermSize=150m -Xbootclasspath/p:../lib/boot.jar -ea</string>
Run IntelliJ. If you have an open project, do File | Close Project.
From the "Quick start" page that appears when no project is open, choose Check out from Version Control | Subversion. If you haven't done this before, press the + sign and add the path svn+ssh://jacob.stanford.edu/u/nlp/svnroot .
Expand the tree list triangle down to see trunk, and then again to see javanlp. Click on javanlp, and then press Checkout.
Choose a local Destination directory. I choose /Users/manning/javanlp. Have it check out recursively. Sit back and wait a while.
Say Yes when asked if you would like to create an IntelliJ IDEA project for the sources you checked out.
Choose create Java project from existing sources. Call it javanlp. Take all the source files it has found. Take the libraries it finds. Except rename lib1 as mtlib (select and click on the pencil button). Take the Modules it finds. Except rename Test1 as RTETest. Finish. Wait again.
Open up IntelliJ IDEA | Preferences.... Click on Project Settings. Under Project JDK, click New. Choose JSDK. Navigate to the one you installed and select it (the root directory). Choose OK. It will show up as 1.6 (1.6.0_03-p3) in the combobox. Choose 5.0 as the project language level. For Project compiler output, I changed out to classes, but whatever.
In the same preferences window, under Project Settings, choose Modules, and then choose Core and then choose Dependencies. Remove the two libraries from mt/lib (fastutil-5.0.9.jar and bsh.jar). The first of these screws up compilation, because Core should use the more recent fastutil-5.0.10.jar. (This is something IntelliJ seems to do badly: it gives all libraries to all modules by default, rather than just the libraries that correspond to a module in the source tree organization.)
In the same preferences window, under Project Settings, choose Modules, and then choose Core and then choose Dependencies. Change the Module JDK to 1.5. Then you'll still be able to run your Core package code with the standard Applie Java 5 runtime at the command-line.
In the same preferences window, under Project Settings, choose Modules, and then right click RTETest and delete it. Choose Rte, and navigate to the src directory inside test and click Test Sources to label it as a Test Source directory. Similarly delete Test and then choose Core and navigate to the src directory inside test and click Test Sources to label it as a Test Source directory.
In the same preferences window, under Platform Settings, select JDKs, and then look at the Classpath. Click "Add..." and navigate to the jre/lib subdirectory of your soylatte installation and multiselect all 6 jar files there and say OK.
Click on Compiler. Change the amount of memory (at the bottom) to 256 MB. Say OK. Twice.
Close preferences, and say Yes when it asks if you want to reload your project with the new language level.
Choose Build | Make Project. Wait again. But it should work without errors (only warnings). Yippee!!.

Download and Install IntelliJ

You can download IntelliJ for the operating system of your choice at http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/download/index.html. Talk to Chris about obtaining a license. If you don't have a Java JDK, you need to download and install one from http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp before starting to work with IntelliJ.

Create a Project

Name: javanlp
Project file location: C:\Documents and Settings\user\IdeaProjects\project_name
(This is where IntelliJ will keep all of its meta-data and project-specific settings. The default location is probably fine.)
Project JDK: Select a configured JDK or Configure... and browse for the root directory of an installed JDK
e.g. C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.5.0
Select Create single-module project
Select Java Module
Module name: javanlp
Module content root: C:\Documents and Settings\user\IdeaProjects\project_name
(This is the root directory of the project; underneath will be src\ for sources files, etc. The default is to use the same dir as the project file, which again is probably fine.)
Create source directory
(When you download the repository you'll get a source directory called "src" anyway, so this is redundant. Just click through.)
Select compiler output path: module_content_root\classes
(Ditto about redundancy. Just keep the default.)

So really the only things you need to change are Name: and the path to your JDK. The rest of the defaults are fine. Now you've got an empty project. The next step is to download javaNLP.

CVS Integration

IntelliJ 4.0 and higher comes with CVS built in, so downloading the repository is a snap.

Select File->Settings and open the Version Control dialog. In the pull-down menu at the top, select "CVS". Check out the options below if you like, but the defaults should work fine. Click "OK".
Next, select File->Check Out from CVS and hit Configure. Set the CVS root to :ssh:username@nlp.stanford.edu:/u/nlp/cvsroot


If you have a private key, you can set it in this dialog.  If not,
refer to the JavaNLP CVS guide for how to set
up public key/private key authentication.
Back in the "Check out from CVS" dialogue, select the CVS configuration you just set up, 
and hit "Next" to browse the repository
Select the javanlp "element", and in the next frame, the directory where you want to check
it out to.  This should be the same as your module_content_root above e.g. C:\Documents and
Settings\user\IdeaProjects\project_name.



In the sections that follow, JAVANLP_HOME refers to the
module_content_root or the base directory of your local copy of the repository. 

Classpath and Compiler options


Download all the external libraries used in JavaNLP from the
/u/nlp/java/lib directory (or download and unpack the
/u/nlp/java/javanlp-lib.tar.gz file) to the newly created
JAVANLP_HOME/lib directory.
Next open the File->Settings->Paths dialog, and select the "Libraries (Classpath)"
tab.  Click "Add Jar/Directory", and navigate to (and expand) JAVANLP_HOME/lib. (Hint: use the little
blue "IJ" icon to open JAVANLP_HOME.)  Highlite all of the individual
.jar files that you just downloaded and hit "OK".
While you have the "Paths" dialogue open, also change the drop-down menu at the bottom-left
"Language level for project" to "5.0".
Next open the "Compiler" dialogue (from "Settings") and add "-source 1.5" under "additional command line parameters".


Style Conventions IntelliJ lets you specify
all sorts of details about code formatting, including tab-width, spacing,
newlines, when to use braces, alignment, and so forth.  You can easily
reformat an entire file to match your code style.  We're not sticklers
about whether you put a space after a comma in a list (although IntelliJ
does let you specify this), but in order to make sure the code stays
readable using the editor of your choice we strongly prefer that you use
the same indentation standards as everyone else.  These are: Space
characters are used for indentation, not tabs
 Tab width is 2
spaces
 You can specify this yourself in Settings->Global
Code Style or you can import  the
"official" javaNLP settings file.  Just download this file (it's a
.jar file because IntelliJ is written in java, but don't let
that confuse you; just import it as directed here), and then select
File->Import Settings and point the browser to the file.

Ant Integration
Although it's easy to compile your files with IntelliJ itself, IntelliJ also
supports Apache Ant compilation for those who prefer it.


Select Ant Build under the Window menu
In the Ant Build window, click on the "+"
Use the file chooser to select the JAVANLP_HOME/build.xml file
IntelliJ will recognize all the compilation targets
You can double-click on any of the targets in the Ant Build
window to compile the target 
Alternatively, under the Build menu, all of the compilation
targets should be available under the JavaNLP  submenu


Miscellaneous Issues

File Encoding
In order to make sure your file encoding is UNIX-friendly (so you don't
get all those ^M's at the end of each line from Window's carriage
returns), under Settings->IDE Settings->General, set the
"Default Encoding" to UTF-8.

Excluding Directories from Compilation 
If someone checked in some bad code that's breaking your compile, or you just want to speed up the
compile time for the stuff you're working on, you can exclude files and
directories from the IntelliJ compiler in the
File->Settings->Compiler dialog.

JavaDoc Headers
When you create new files automatically with IntelliJ, it will make a
JavaDoc file header for you.  Unfortunately, this header won't even be
proper JavaDoc format.  Please go to Settings->File Templates
and change it.  (Hint: add an @author tag!) If you import our style settings file, this will be done for
you.

Caret Placement
One IntelliJ default that I (personally) find annoying, is that if you
click way off the end of the line, it allows the caret to go there,
filling in the intervening space with space characters.  You can turn this
off in Settings->Editor->Virtual Space by unchecking the
"Allow placement of caret after end of line" option.

Explore!

IntelliJ is a fully customizable, extremely flexible and
powerful IDE.  It has very useful capabilities for code navigation
(e.g. type CTRL-b on any class or variable name to go to its
definition), and refactoring (e.g. type CTRL-ALT-n to inline
a variable or function, or SHIFT-F6 to rename a variable or
class).  You can change the key mapping to emulate emacs or Mac OSX.  You
can use and define your own quite sophisticated code-sensitive macros (try
declaring a Collection and then type "itco" *TAB*).

Time spent exploring and get used to using IntelliJ's advanced capabilities will be repaid ten-fold in terms
of saved time coding in the future.  (Not to mention reduced headaches!)





Send e-mail to Galen Andrew (galen@cs.stanford.edu) if
this is confusing or you need help.

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