What’s New in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate 2023.3
The Ultimate edition of IntelliJ IDEA goes beyond the basics, offering a comprehensive suite of features, including in-depth profiling capabilities, database tools, built-in support for many web and enterprise frameworks, and more. In this latest v2023.3 release, we’ve rolled out a suite of new features to enhance your coding experience. Highlights of this update include […]
The Ultimate edition of IntelliJ IDEA goes beyond the basics, offering a comprehensive suite of features, including in-depth profiling capabilities, database tools, built-in support for many web and enterprise frameworks, and more.
In this latest v2023.3 release, we’ve rolled out a suite of new features to enhance your coding experience. Highlights of this update include AI-powered coding assistance, improved integration with popular frameworks, streamlined database interactions, a smoother Kubernetes workflow, and more.
In this blog post, we’ll guide you through these new features, showcasing what IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate 2023.3 has to offer to bring you a superior coding experience.
AI Assistant
JetBrains AI Assistant is now out of technical preview and comes packed with new and enhanced features. It brings AI-powered code generation directly into your editor and also incorporates an AI chat that addresses project-related queries without the need for code duplication.
The AI actions now leverage extended project context, delivering more comprehensive and relevant outcomes. A distinct diff viewer simplifies the process of identifying changes suggested by the AI Assistant, making it easier to evaluate its recommendations.
Beyond coding assistance, AI Assistant also aids in adjacent tasks like crafting commit messages or generating documentation. Access to these supplementary features is available through the purchase of a JetBrains AI Service subscription.
The HTTP Client
The HTTP Client in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate has received significant enhancements. The Structure tool window now comes with color-coded labels and a clear listing of request types for streamlined navigation within large .http files.
Variable declaration has been simplified, so now you can declare variables simply by using @, avoiding the need for additional environment files.
The HTTP Client has been updated to support OAuth 2.0 Password and Client Credentials grant types. This simplifies request execution by automatically handling token retrieval and inclusion in requests. Additionally, a login form is now available in a popup dialog with a built-in web browser that you can interact with as needed.
Working with JSON request bodies is now more intuitive, as the IDE automatically inserts required parameters and offers autocompletion for complex JSON structures.
Integration of the GraphQL plugin with the HTTP Client further enhances your ability to manage GraphQL requests efficiently.
OpenAPI specifications
Managing OpenAPI specifications has been simplified. The new visual editing capabilities available allow you to quickly compose well-formatted OpenAPI specifications, both in YAML and JSON formats.
The integrated version of Swagger UI has been updated to 5.0, which supports OpenAPI 3.1 specifications. You can switch between Redoc and the updated Swagger UI preview in OpenAPI files via the floating toolbar action.
Code completion has been refined to better handle URLs. Typing / now triggers the IDE to automatically suggest server endpoint URLs, taking into account both your application’s APIs and attached OpenAPI specifications.
Quarkus and Micronaut
In IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate 2023.3, the Beans tool window has been expanded to include Quarkus and Micronaut components, offering a detailed view of your project’s bean configuration.
As of v2023.3, the IDE supports the Micronaut expression language and now comes with enhanced highlighting, completion, and inspections for it. It also provides corresponding syntax highlighting in all relevant annotations.
Quarkus Qute type-safe templates are fully supported, providing extensive code completion and navigation capabilities.
Additionally, Quarkus projects can now use Run with Coverage and Profile with IntelliJ Profiler configurations, which are directly accessible from the Run widget and help to streamline your development and testing processes.
Spring Framework
Spring 6.1 features are now fully supported in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate. This includes comprehensive support for the new RestClient, SQL highlighting, and parameter name code completion for the new JdbcClient, as well as support for the @Scheduled scheduler attribute, which includes completion suggestions and validation for bean names used within this context.
The introduction of the Spring GraphQL plugin adds new capabilities for developing Spring applications built with GraphQL Java. With this plugin enabled, the IDE now offers code navigation, code completion, and schema mapping for Spring GraphQL.
The latest release introduces an option to add and modify Spring Boot starters within an existing module of your project, making it easier to manage Maven and Gradle dependencies and adjust your project’s configuration.
With IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate 2023.3, it is now easy to create data sources from Spring Boot configurations, as the IDE now automatically detects and adds data source configurations based on Spring Boot application.yaml and application.properties files.
Additionally, the IDE is now capable of creating Kafka connections in Spring-based applications using the data from both the application.yaml and the application.properties configuration files.
Bicep support
The introduction of Bicep support in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate is a significant enhancement to the cloud development workflow. Bicep, designed specifically for Azure infrastructure as code, integrates seamlessly with the IDE, providing code highlighting and completion.
Kubernetes
Kubernetes development gets a major boost in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate 2023.3. With the Kubernetes plugin now bundled, all its features are readily available, offering an out-of-the-box experience for Kubernetes application development.
As of the latest update, IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate supports $schema references in YAML file comments. This enhancement enables the IDE to recognize specific YAML schemas mentioned in comments and offer code completion and syntax checks based on these schemas. This feature works seamlessly whether the schema is stored locally or retrieved from a remote source.
IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate 2023.3 introduces a feature that simplifies adding kubeconfig contexts from an external directory. The project will include links to kubeconfig files, making these clusters readily accessible during development. This is particularly beneficial for those who regularly add and remove Kubernetes clusters across cloud or local environments.
IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate 2023.3 includes enhancements in database interaction within Kubernetes, such as port forwarding configuration while setting up database connections.
In the cluster’s context menu, you can now find Telepresence functionality. Telepresence enhances local debugging of Kubernetes application microservices, making your workstation act like part of the cluster. It simplifies access to the cluster’s namespace and the DNS names of microservices. With Telepresence interception, you can redirect traffic from other cluster services to selected ports on your workstation and debug microservices locally using familiar IDE tools.
In the 2023.3 update of IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, there’s now support for the top-level import blocks featured in the configuration language Terraform 1.5. These import blocks simplify integrating existing infrastructure into Terraform’s management system, which performs automatic code generation for imported resources and streamlines your workflow when developing infrastructure as code.
Dev Containers
IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate’s support for Dev Containers has been significantly extended. Now, it’s easier to add tools, runtimes, and libraries with Dev Container Features. We’ve also added Docker Compose support, so you can now launch both the main container and dependent containers from the IDE. Plus, we’ve implemented automatic port forwarding, meaning that any ports the application starts listening to in a Dev Container are seamlessly forwarded.
Database tools
In IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate 2023.3, data management and visualization take a leap forward with the integration of the Lets-Plot library, which enables no-code data visualization.
IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate 2023.3 includes the highly anticipated support for DynamoDB, including a data viewer, PartiQL support in the editor, and introspection for tables that contain keys and indexes.
The reworked import functionality, marking the completion of the transition to the new Modify Object UI, enables importing to multiple targets and simultaneous editing.
The 2023.3 release also features improvements in database introspection, including introspection intervals, automatic introspection level for Oracle, support for both new objects in SQL Server, and materialized views in Amazon Redshift.
Web development
Web development in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate 2023.3 sees significant improvements, especially for TypeScript, Vue 3, and Angular.
TypeScript development is more streamlined with better handling of import type statements and improved behavior for the exports field of package.json for TypeScript files.
As for Vue 3, we’ve added support for defineSlots and defineExpose properties, and the IDE now provides code completion for them, too. Required imports for components are now being added based on the name specified by the defineOptions function.
Angular support is enhanced with better strict template type checking. We’ve also supported new control-flow syntax support from v17 and signals, including live templates like signal, computed, and effect. Additionally, there’s a new helpful quick-fix that can help you instantly create, for example, @Input and @Output properties from a component template.
What’s more, testing JavaScript code is now more efficient with automatic detection of Cypress and Playwright tests, as well as support for the native Node.js test runner.
This IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate 2023.3 release is packed with features designed to provide developers with the tools they need to stay ahead in the ever-changing technological landscape.
We appreciate your feedback regarding the new additions to the IDE. For those eager to contribute to the future of IntelliJ IDEA, we invite you to join the Early Access Program for version 2024.1. This is a great opportunity to test out the upcoming features and help shape the next major release.
Happy developing!
