Features

Rearrange Attributes in Android XML Files with IntelliJ IDEA 13

IntelliJ IDEA 13 will bring a lot of goodies for Android developers. One very useful new feature is the capability to automatically rearrange XML attributes according to predefined rules.

To enable this new feature, go to Settings Code Style XML and choose Set from… → Predefined Style Android. After that on the Arrangement tab you will find the following list of arrangement rules:

By default the rules represent the common Android-style order. You can manage this order using the Arrangement controls. For example, you can move the name attribute in front of the id attribute:

Or you can remove most of these rules to make the attributes sorted alphabetically:

The easiest way to perform such a rearrangement is to call the Reformat action and enable Rearrange entries:

Alternatively you can use a separate action, Rearrange Code. By default it has no shortcut, but you can assign it manually in Settings → Keymap. There is also a specific option Force Rearrange available in Settings Code Style XML Arrangement which enables rearrangement in XML files on the Reformat action.

You can already try the new feature in IntelliJ IDEA 13 EAP. Feel free to share your feedback on our discussion forum and submit bug reports to our issue tracker.

Develop with Pleasure!

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