How to set IntelliJ / Pycharm settings under version control?

Question

I am a frequent user of PyCharm and a number of other JetBrains IDEs. I try to keep my settings synchronized in different IDEs, but now I am considering switching to IntelliJ IDEA, and it is very difficult for me to understand what I changed and what are the differences between my different settings files.

How can I put PyCharm's configuration files under version control to track my changes, as well as quickly revert to old versions so that I can try new configuration changes without fear?

(I don't mind exporting to a specific repo every time, but it seems that settings are always exported as JAR files that are not VCS-capable.)

Answer 1

I use the Settings Repository plugin to sync settings between PyCharm and PhpStorm, and it works very well. It is actually designed with version control and team sharing in mind, see the repository of the project on github and has built-in support for resolving conflicts, merging and rewriting remote or local ones.

It also supports the file system and, as far as I can tell, what is then stored is a mirrored version of the git repository.

Answer 2

PyCharm (at least Linux 4.X and 5.0 Pro) places its configuration files in the .idea directory in the project directory:

 $ find .idea/ .idea/ .idea/libraries .idea/libraries/Google_App_Engine_SDK.xml .idea/libraries/Generated_files.xml .idea/apartsw.iml .idea/misc.xml .idea/modules.xml .idea/runConfigurations .idea/runConfigurations/apartsw.xml .idea/encodings.xml .idea/vcs.xml .idea/inspectionProfiles .idea/inspectionProfiles/MyProject.xml .idea/inspectionProfiles/profiles_settings.xml .idea/watcherTasks.xml .idea/webResources.xml .idea/workspace.xml .idea/scopes .idea/scopes/scope_settings.xml .idea/dictionaries .idea/dictionaries/username.xml 

I added the entire directory except .idea/workspace.xml to the git repo project, after JetBrains PyCharm-specific and / or general .idea recommendations .