Top Five Intellij Plugins for Java/Kotlin Devs

Cristian R. Silva — Thu, 29 Apr 2021 21:50:53 +0000

Plugins can be very handy in many situations in our daily coding. It can extend core functionalities, provide various integrations and support to automate many tasks.

These are my top plugins

SonarLint

SonarLint lets you fix bugs and vulnerabilities as you write code!

It highlights coding issues on the fly, with clear remediation guidance so you can fix them before the code is even committed.

This is a must have. It helps a lot to write better code.

Maven Helper

Are you a grateful Maven user? I'm too!

It provides

easy way for analyzing and excluding conflicting dependencies
easy way to search for direct or transitive dependencies
actions to run/debug maven goals for a module that contains the current file or on the root module
action to open terminal at the current maven module path
actions to run/debug the current test file If maven-surefire-plugin is configured to skip or exclude the test, 'verify' goal will be used. Different configuration styles can be found at https://github.com/harishkannarao/MavenSurefireFailsafeExamples

CodeMetrics

Provides inlay indicators based on a customizable complexity calculation for Java files.
It will show hints, in classes and methods, so you can easily identify what needs to be reviewed.

It is not a standard metric, but it is a close approximation of Cyclomatic complexity. You can also customize the complexity calculation for the project by adjusting the relevant configuration entries.

String Manipulation

Case switching, sorting, filtering, incrementing, aligning to columns, grepping, escaping, encoding and much more...

JPA Buddy

JPA Buddy simplifies and accelerates everything related to JPA. It provides tools to assist your work with Hibernate, Spring Data JPA, Liquibase, Flyway and similar things.

Key features

JPA entities: creating and editing entities, entity attributes, lifecycle callbacks, indexes and constraints. Support for JPA converters and Hibernate custom types. Ability to use Lombok annotations for entities.
Generating proper equals, hashCode and toString method implementations for JPA entities.
Source code intentions, inspections and quick fixes for JPA entity declarations.
Displaying entity relationship graph in the JPA Structure panel, under the Persistent Units node.
Liquibase changelogs and Flyway versioned migrations automatic generation: comparing database to database, model to database, model to snapshot.
Liquibase changelog visual designer and coding assistance: creating and editing elements, references to table names, column names, included files etc.
Actions: creating Liquibase snapshot, running "liquibase update" and "liquibase updateSQL" commands.
Spring Data Repositories: creating repositories, creating repository methods, editing method properties, creating projection based on entity class, extract JPQL query.
Kotlin: all visual designers fully support code generation for Kotlin entities and repositories.

Well, I said it was a top 5... but I have one more...

Extra Icons

It's an icon pack that adds icons for files like Markdown, Yaml, Maven, Git and many others.
You will get used to it as it helps to easily recognize files. It's for sure recommended.

Those are my top 5 + 1 most used plugins :)

What are yours?

My Remote Productivity Hacks

Cristian R. Silva — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 20:53:12 +0000

Is remote work something new for you? Are you struggling to keep the productivity you once have in the office?

These are some tips that can help to improve your productivity levels.

Long-running Slack threads

In many cases, starting a quick Zoom call will save a lot of time.

Notifications overload

Slack, e-mail, meetings, OS... too many notifications!

Go into do not disturb.

Slack: /dnd

macOS: Go to Notification Center and tap Do Not Disturb. This is better as everything will be muted.

Are you in too many channels?

Leave channels that don't offer any value.

Meetings, meetings and more meetings

block your calendar.
once a while, when possible, take calls outside your home... get some fresh air.
be honest and let people know if the conversation needs to move on (thereby speeding up your meetings).

Outside work distractions

get headphones
enable do not disturb on your mobile

Time management

Have you heard about Pomodoro Technique?
It is an extremely useful time management method that helps to break down work intervals separated by short break intervals.

You don't need to manage the intervals manually, there are many tools that can automatically do it for you.

My choice is Flow, a minimalistic pomodoro based focus timer. Increase your productivity and reduce stress at the same time.

Those are the hacks I use daily to improve my productivity. What about yours?

DEV Community: Cristian R. Silva