How to view the list of compile errors in IntelliJ

Question

I am looking for a way to view all compile errors in IntelliJ, similar to how they are displayed in Eclipse. I tried searching here and Google but have not really found a solution. I really like IntelliJ, I recently converted to it from Eclipse, and I hope this is just something I am missing and not a fundamental deficiency.

Answer 1

On my system (IntelliJ Idea 2017.2.5), it was not sufficient to enable "Make Project Automatically". I also had to use the menu item "View, Tool Windows, Problems" to see the problems tool window at the bottom of the screen.

Answer 2

A more up to date answer for anyone else who comes across this:

(from https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/eclipse.html, §Auto-compilation; click for screenshots)

Compile automatically:

To enable automatic compilation, navigate to Settings/Preferences | Build, Execution, Deployment | Compiler and select the Build project automatically option

Show all errors in one place:

The Problems tool window appears if the Make project automatically option is enabled in the Compiler settings. It shows a list of problems that were detected on project compilation.

Use the Eclipse compiler: This is actually bundled in IntelliJ. It gives much more useful error messages, in my opinion, and, according to this blog, it's much faster since it was designed to run in the background of an IDE and uses incremental compilation.

While Eclipse uses its own compiler, IntelliJ IDEA uses the javac compiler bundled with the project JDK. If you must use the Eclipse compiler, navigate to Settings/Preferences | Build, Execution, Deployment | Compiler | Java Compiler and select it... The biggest difference between the Eclipse and javac compilers is that the Eclipse compiler is more tolerant to errors, and sometimes lets you run code that doesn't compile.

Answer 3

I think this comes closest to what you wish:

(From IntelliJ IDEA Q&A for Eclipse Users):

The above can be combined with a recently introduced option in Compiler settings to get a view very similar to that of Eclipse.

Things to do:

1. Switch to 'Problems' view in the Project pane:
   
   

2. Enable the setting to compile the project automatically :
   
   

3. Finally, look at the Problems view:
   
   

Here is a comparison of what the same project (with a compilation error) looks like in Intellij IDEA 13.xx and Eclipse Kepler:

Relevant Links: The maven project shown above : https://github.com/ajorpheus/CompileTimeErrors
FAQ For 'Eclipse Mode' / 'Automatically Compile' a project : http://devnet.jetbrains.com/docs/DOC-1122