Intellij constantly compiles TypeScript (very slow) - How to stop this behavior?

Question

I am in the process of migrating an Angular 1.x project from vanilla JS to TypeScript. However, I am experiencing extremely slow response times from my IDE.

If I uncheck "Track changes" in Settings > Languages & Frameworks > TypeScript, the compilation stops--but I am then in a position where my TS doesn't compile!

Of course, I could configure a gulp file and set a watcher that recompiles files on change. But, if possible, I would like to avoid the need to run gulp for each project. Also, more importantly, unchecking "Track changes" removes TS specific advice AND appears to break some references.

Track changes: Checked - Help + references

Track changes: Unchecked - No help + References broken

Question #1:

Is it possible to configure Intellij such that it only compiles changed files?

Question #2:

Why is Intellij compiling so many files? Here is a copy of my tsconfig.json:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "module": "system",
    "noImplicitAny": false,
    "removeComments": true,
    "preserveConstEnums": true,
    "outFile": "build/local/tsc.js",
    "sourceMap": true,
    "typeRoots": [
      "./node_modules/@types",
      "./typings"
    ],
    "moduleResolution": "node"
  },

  "exclude": [
    "client/src/node_modules",
    "**/*.spec.ts",
    "src/bower_components",
    "client/src/bower_components",
    "client/src/node_modules",
    "build",
    "Saved_HTML",
    "site-ideas",
    "node_modules",
    "client/typings"
  ]
}

Note that despite setting node_modules as an ignored directory, the compiler is still reaching in there. .

Answer 1

Question 1:

IntelliJ saves files pretty frequently. Typescript compiles when a file is saved. Therfore, you should disable or limit autosave.

Question 2:

I dont know why excluding files doesn't work for you, but I suggest rather to include "rootDir": "./yourSourceDir" than exclude other files.