If you are tired of the default look or darcula theme of IntelliJ (tested on 2017.x and 2018.x versions) or Android Studio , you can switch to a better looking theme . This is a very short process
IntelliJ with Obsidian.jar theme and darcula
1 Select your theme
color-themes.com has plenty of themes ( Sublime Text 2 , Monokai,) . Download the .jar file . Roboticket.jar is my current theme
2 Import the theme
Import to IntelliJ or Android Studio by going to File -> import settings -> and select the .jar file you downloaded.
Select All . press OK. Then Restart your IDE.
Note : if you use darcula theme previously , you will notice the new theme is only applied to the Text Editor. The light theme clearly contrasts
3 Appearance theme
On Mac , go to Preferences -> Appearance . You can also use the shortcut Preferences -> search theme on the top left search bar Next to Theme , Select Default . Or Darcula if you are using a dark theme .
Restart your IDE.
Shortly after Android studio came out, I installed it at work. As a long user of IntelliJ ( BTW I visited their office in Prague ), my IntelliJ projects were imported into Android studio.
What’s the difference between the two ?
Just like ADT Bundle bundles Eclipse + ADT plugin + Android SDK now , Android Studio is pre-packaged with the Android SDK, so it already knows about android.sdk.path . In short it ‘s easier to install Android Studio than IntelliJ + Android SDK. IntelliJ Community edition is more general. As this quote from Yole ( from JetBrains team )
Yole : The main point of this for Google is being able to have an experience focused on Android – as an example, Android Studio bundles the Android SDK and configures it automatically for you. IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition has a broader focus; for it, Android development is just one of the many scenarios it supports.
As far as I remember IntelliJ supported Android since 2011. Back then, there was no graphical preview for the layout editor. But I used it for the fast code completion and faster compilation time. IntelliJ Community Edition bundles a Android plugin, so there was no need to download the equivalent of ADT.
But still for me, Android Studio == IntelliJ specialized on Android . I use their names interchangeably
Stability
As an early preview (currently v0.1.1 ) , I caught and filed the issue number 56000 ( round number , am I lucky ? ) that IntelliJ 12 did not have . I had to switch back to IntelliJ. After a few days , I opened Android Studio and an upgrade notification popped up. The issue was fixed.
Choices
Now there are two official IDE for Android : Eclipse and IntelliJ
Eclipse
Android Studio
Version Control System ( VCS )
Need a plugin for each VCS. Update with an external VCS client, you need to refresh the workspace
VCS integrated. It supports Git, subversion, mercurial. When you update with an external VCS client, IntelliJ will sync automatically . WIN
Code completion
faster and indexes the world. WIN
There is one area that Eclipse beats IntelliJ : the number of plugins available. I only switches to Eclipse when there is a large team that uses Eclipse because we can easily share dependencies with the .properties files, whereas IntelliJ use .iml files.
By default, Android developers used Eclipse by default. Now Google officially supports two of them. My current choice is IntelliJ ( or Android Studio ). I don’t like the darkcula theme, I prefer light color . Matter of taste like WordPress themes . And you , what will be your choice ?
