Support for JetBrains IDEs

[magkri]

Please consider adding support for selecting a JetBrains IDE (IntelliJ, PyCharm, WebStorm, etc.) as the default code editor.

[Seluj78]

I'll allow myself to bump this issue as it's now 6 months old without an update or ETA

[Byron]

Thanks for the bump, this issue wasn't even triaged yet.

Also, I wonder how this would best be implemented as they have a separate ID for most languages, something that the current UI isn't made for as Jetbrains would just dominate there.

What's the state of the art here? Is there examples what other tools can do in this space?

I myself can open directories in an IDE, but I never tried with files. There it's a question if it would be able to open the right project automatically.
With knowledge of the right app, the whole project could be opened like this on macOS at least: open -na "RustRover.app" --args "$@".

[magkri]

I’m not sure what the state of the art is here, nor what other tools do, but here are some thoughts:

On Windows (at least), you can do rustrover64.exe <project-root-path> <file-path> to open a file within a given project. Another option is rustrover64.exe -e <file-path>, which opens the file in LightEdit mode, letting the user quickly edit the file or choose which project to open it in. I assume there are equivalent commands on macOS and Linux.

The simplest way to avoid cluttering the UI is a nested/multilevel dropdown: the user first selects “JetBrains”, then gets the list of supported JetBrains IDEs. This would be consistent with the current approach of listing supported IDEs even if they aren’t installed on the user’s system.

In general, though, I think it would be better if GitButler’s “Default code editor” dropdown only showed IDEs GitButler has actually detected on the system. From a UI/UX perspective, it doesn’t make much sense to let users pick e.g. Zed if it isn’t installed.

So the best approach might be: detect which specific JetBrains IDEs are installed and only display those (no nesting). Most JetBrains users only have a couple installed anyway. This is obviously easier said than done, since it needs to work reliably across different operating systems and installation methods. One option is to detect IDEs installed via the JetBrains Toolbox App and/or the standalone installers in their default install locations. Another is to check for the presence of the relevant executables, e.g. something like Get-Command rustrover64.exe on Windows or which rustrover on macOS/Linux. The latter would allow arbitrary install locations and methods.

A more flexible alternative would be to let users configure custom editors, either via the UI or a config file. That avoids both UI clutter and the need to detect IDEs. Users would specify the command(s) to run per operation GitButler needs, using predefined placeholders for file paths, project paths, etc. This would allow any IDE that can be invoked from the CLI, not just JetBrains IDEs, to integrate with GitButler. Such a system could also be repurposed to extend the native editor support.

Ideally, GitButler would also support a project-specific code editor under “Project settings” to override the default. That would be especially useful for JetBrains users (e.g., Rust projects in RustRover and Python projects in PyCharm), but would likely help some non-JetBrains users as well.

[Byron]

Thanks for sharing, it's much appreciated!

I also think that ultimately, besides reasonable presets or just opening files with the program that is associated with the file extension, that we should provide a way to configure this. Ideally, that happens via git/config as it will allow configuration sharing and configuration via includeif.

[SVilgelm]

The toolbox can open any files in the dedicated IDE via toolbox URL:
jetbrains://goland/navigate/reference?project=mongoifc&path=client.go

[SVilgelm]

open --url "jetbrains://goland/navigate/reference?project=mongoifc&path=client.go"

works as expected on macOS

[SVilgelm]

Here is the format:

jetbrains://${toolTag}/navigate/reference?project=${project}&path=${filePath}:${line}:${column}

as you can see, the tool tag is mandatory, but I found the idea works as a fallback and it actually opens in the goland:

open --url "jetbrains://idea/navigate/reference?project=mongoifc&path=client.go"

[Byron]

Thanks a lot, this seems very promising and we can give it a quick shot!