Miscellaneous Swing Components

Messages

The Messages class provides a way to show simple message boxes, input dialogs (modal dialogs with a text field), and chooser dialogs (modal dialogs with a combo box). The function of different methods of the class should be clear from their names. When running on macOS, the message boxes shown by the Messages class use the native UI.

The showCheckboxMessageDialog() function provides an easy way to implement a Do not show this again checkbox on messages.

Note that it is recommended to use non-modal notifications instead of modal message boxes whenever it's appropriate. Please refer to the Notifications topic for more information.

JBSplitter

The JBSplitter class is JetBrains' replacement for the standard JSplitPane class. Unlike some other JetBrains-enhanced Swing components, it's not a drop-in replacement and has a different API. However, to achieve a consistent user experience, it's recommended to use JBSplitter instead of the standard JSplitPane.

To add components to the splitter, call the setFirstComponent() and setSecondComponent() methods.

JBSplitter supports automatic remembering of the split proportion. To enable it, call the setSplitterProportionKey() method and pass the ID under which the proportion will be stored.

JBTabs

The JBTabs class is JetBrains' implementation of the tab control, used for editor tabs and a few other components. It has a significantly different look & feel compared to the standard Swing tabs, and looks less native on the macOS platform, so it's up to the developer to choose which tab control would be more appropriate.

Toolbars

See Toolbar in the IntelliJ Platform UI Guidelines for an overview.

Building UI from Actions covers creating AnAction-based toolbars.