Tips & Tricks

Smoothen HTML and XML editing in IntelliJ IDEA

When you open a tag, IntelliJ IDEA assists you by automatically inserting the closing tag. This is really handy and helps avoid certain errors, but when you are typing a text and, say, want to highlight a couple of words with bold, the </b> tag which is inserted just after <b> makes you press the right arrow several times to skip it so that you can continue typing.
To smoothen the editing, use CTRL+[ and CTRL+] keyboard shortcuts that let you navigate to the first character of an opening tag or to the last character of a closing tag.
IDEA Quick Tag Jump
In this particular case, when you are done typing text inside the <b></b>, press CTRL+] and then right arrow to get outside the tag. No matter how long it is (<em>, <font>, <strong>) you can leave it just in two key strokes and go on typing your code.
These shortcuts are also really handy for quick jumping through lengthy tags without folding them.

Technorati tags: XML, HTML, IntelliJ, IDE
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