By pressing the corresponding shortcut, the tool window gets visible and takes the focus. Most tool windows in IntelliJ IDEA are assigned to handy shortcuts. Using this action you’re able to navigate over the entire project structure create and change files, see its content, and many other useful things. To activate the power of the navigation bar, call the Jump to navigation bar action via Alt + Home (Alt + ↖ for OS X).

New users usually think that it’s just a breadcrumb, more experienced developers know how to make do almost anything you may want. Senior IntellIJ IDEA users know a much better one: the navigation bar. However, the project tree, in fact, is not the best option.

Actually, this is why it’s so easy in IntelliJ IDEA to switch between the project tree and the editor. Some people may argue that they also need to see the project tree, to understand the context they’re in, or to have a chance to quickly change it. It’s very helpful to accept the fact that most of your time the editor (and the code) is the only thing visible on your screen. When you use this action the next time, the IDE will remember your preference. To call this action just press Ctrl + E (Cmd + E for OS X). Once you get used to it, you’ll start using it for most of your navigation operations. This clearly explains why the Recent files action is such a heavily-used feature among IntelliJ IDEA users. If you pause for a moment and think about your navigation patterns, you’ll notice that most of the time you work with a finite set of files. Today’s article focuses on the features that let you navigate between project files, blocks of code, and UI elements such as tool windows, editor tabs, etc. Most of your time is spent in the code editor, and navigation is just a means that helps you get from one location in the code to another without wasting too much time. One of the fundamental things you, an IntelliJ IDEA user, need to understand to be able to harness all its power, is that this IDE was designed to keep the focus on the code. Continuing my series of articles where I highlight the top IntelliJ IDEA features (earlier I blogged about the top code completion and refactorings features), I’d like to talk about navigation, which is another productivity-boosting function of an IDE that saves you lots of time, provided, of course, you’re using it right.

Intellij key structure