Getting started with IDEA - IntelliJ IDEA in Action - page 2

Welcome to IntelliJ IDEA in Action. This topic was written to introduce you to
IDEA , one of the most innovative and intelligent Java integrated development
environments ( IDE s) available today.
IDEA is a fully featured IDE that has evolved beyond traditional IDE s by inte-
grating modern best-practice features such as refactoring, intelligent code-editing
assistance, and runtime analysis of code design. On the client side, IDEA sports a
custom GUI Designer interface for rapid and uncomplicated interface design;
on the server side, IDEA enjoys integration with J2EE technologies including
industry-leading application servers. It's the only IDE in the industry that was
originally built with the mission to enhance its users' productivity while providing
a comfortable, customizable development environment to suit individual tastes
and coding styles.
You may be new to Java programming, looking for a development environ-
ment that will help you learn the language. Or perhaps you're a seasoned devel-
oper who's used different IDE s in the past and likes to compare their features. Or
perhaps you're an enterprise Java architect, looking for a development environ-
ment that's refactoring-friendly, provides tools for server development, and
promises to improve your efficiency. Whatever your reason for choosing this
topic, we'll show you all the major functional components of the IDEA environ-
ment, and we'll help you begin developing in it as quickly as possible.
To lay the groundwork for future illustrations, and to provide a consistent
example throughout the topic, we'll introduce a sample application at the end of
this chapter. As we progress through the topic, we'll revisit that application,
improve it, and extend it, with the goal of demonstrating the usefulness of some
of IDEA 's most compelling features.

1.1 I nstalling and running IDEA

Before we begin our exploration of IDEA 's features and how they can be applied
for effect, we're going to cover the basic installation and first-time execution of
the software. Simply reading this topic will help you learn about the IDE , but
nothing beats first-hand experience with the tool itself. If you haven't yet down-
loaded, installed, and run IDEA , we encourage you to do so to make the experi-
ence that much more effective.

1.1.1 Downloading the latest version

If you don't yet have IDEA , you can download a copy of the latest version from the
JetBrains web site (http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/download/), but you'll need a