Creating macros in intellij

Question

I am trying to create a macro that takes a selection of text and runs some find / replace on it using a regular expression. I recorded this macro in intellij, but when I run it, all I get is a search / replace dialog. Search / replace is not performed.

Is anyone lucky with creating find / replace macro in intellij?

Answer 1

I cannot make the macro find / replace work, but I can give you two things that can solve your problem:

• If this is only a few places / times, you need to do this to find / replace has a memory of earlier replacements (down arrow in the search / replace fields).

• Write a plugin (yes, seriously, it’s not at all difficult) to do it for you. I was surprised how easy it was, although the documentation could be improved.

And the bonus way to do this, I just thought:

• Open the file in the Emacs entry, replacing the macro (or write the elisp function to do this), so I would have done it until I found out how easy it was to create Idea plugins.

Answer 2

This is apparently a long-standing bug in IntelliJ. One way to solve this problem was as follows:

• Install the IdeaVim plugin.
• When recording a macro that needs to be searched, enable Vim mode (Tools → Vim Emulation) during the macro, place the cursor using standard Vim measures, turn off Vim mode.

In general, Vim emulation can be very convenient for IntelliJ macros.

Answer 3

If all else fails, tou can try AutoIT , AutoHotKey , Applescript, or another general-purpose macro system.