Autocompletion of @author in Intellij

Question

I'm migrating from Eclipse to Intellij Idea. One thing I couldn't figure out yet is autocompletion of the @author JavaDoc tag. When typing @a in Eclipse, there are two proposals:

@author - author name
@author

How do I achieve the first proposal in Intellij (is it even possible?)? And if it's possible, how do I change the template of what is inserted for the author name placeholder?

http://stackoverflow.com/a/34475894/907576 there I propose to vote up Jetbrains bug-tracker issue "Configure custom author name/email/organization to be used in file templates, completion etc" — radistao, Dec 26 '15 at 22:42

score 286 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 19 '16 at 23:36

286

One more option, not exactly what you asked, but can be useful:

Go to Settings -> Editor -> File and code templates -> Includes tab (on the right). There is a template header for the new files, you can use the username here:

/**
 * @author myname
 */

For system username use:

/**
 * @author ${USER}
 */

edited Dec 19 '16 at 23:36

informatik01

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answered Sep 23 '13 at 13:51

leveluptor

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9

IDEA 15 : File > Settings > your steps. – HelloWorldNoMore May 04 '16 at 19:01
1

How can add the current date as well? – TuGordoBello Oct 30 '19 at 12:52

score 107 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 05 '21 at 06:39

You can work around that via a Live Template.

Go to Settings -> Editor -> Live Templates, click the Plus Icon Button (on the right).

In the "Abbreviation" field, enter the string that should activate the template (e.g. @a), and in the "Template Text" area enter the string to complete (e.g. @author - My Name). Set the "Applicable context" to Java (Comments only maybe) and set a key to complete (on the right).

I tested it and it works fine, however IntelliJ seems to prefer the inbuild templates, so "@a + Tab" only completes "author". Setting the completion key to Space worked however.

To change the user name that is automatically inserted via the File Templates (when creating a class for example), can be changed by adding

-Duser.name=Your name

to the idea.exe.vmoptions or idea64.exe.vmoptions (depending on your version) in the IntelliJ/bin directory.

Restart IntelliJ

score 30 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 09 '19 at 17:04

30

Check Enable Live Templates and leave the cursor at the position desired and click Apply then OK

answered Dec 09 '19 at 17:04

TarekB

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Suditi Choudhary · Answer 4 · 2021-03-07T13:33:11.363

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For Intellij IDEA Community 2019.1 you will need to follow these steps :

File -> New -> Edit File Templates.. -> Class -> /* Created by ${USER} on ${DATE} */

edited Mar 07 '21 at 13:33

answered Dec 06 '19 at 11:33

Suditi Choudhary

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How to specify Date format in the template? – nanosoft Mar 04 '21 at 06:31
1

There is no direct way to format date so instead of ${DATE} you can use ${YEAR}-${MONTH}-${DAY} – Suditi Choudhary Mar 07 '21 at 13:31
@nanosoft The comment from @Suditi didn't work in intellij 2022.1. I had to create a template variable named `$today$` and assign it the function `date("YY-MM-dd")`. – cb4 Aug 11 '22 at 17:45

Alex Blasco · Answer 5 · 2022-08-12T12:46:54.883

Just to answer some of the questions here:

Yo can also add predefined variables that take the following values:

${PACKAGE_NAME}      Name of the package in which the new file is created
${USER}              Current user system login name
${DATE}              Current system date
${TIME}              Current system time
${YEAR}              Current year
${MONTH}             Current month
${MONTH_NAME_SHORT}  First 3 letters of the current month name. Example: Jan, Feb, etc.
${MONTH_NAME_FULL}   Full name of the current month. Example: January, February, etc.
${DAY}               Current day of the month
${DAY_NAME_SHORT}    First 3 letters of the current day name. Example: Mon, Tue, etc.
${DAY_NAME_FULL}     Full name of the current day. Example: Monday, Tuesday, etc.
${HOUR}              Current hour
${MINUTE}            Current minute
${PROJECT_NAME}      Name of the current project

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 06 '23 at 06:23

If in File -> New -> Edit File Templates no type of files which you want, or you want to annotate the edited file, like

/**
 * Updated by USER.
 * Date: 06.04.2023
 * Time: 9:11
 */

You can go to Settings -> Editor -> Live Templates create a template with variables

/**
 * Updated by $user$.
 * Date: $date$
 * Time: $time$
 */

and on the right click button Edit Variables... and set these variables

Autocompletion of @author in Intellij

6 Answers6

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