Create a web browser link that opens a file in Intellij. Possible?

Question

Example, qbittorent can be made to open links that are of torrent files.

Email clients mailto:

Is it possible to create links in a browser that will open the given file in Intellij? (Not full path, but entire package possibly ).

Idea is that this will be created for bitbucket.

Answer 1

There is an open feature request to add idea:// protocol handler.

At the moment it works on macOS only out of the box. For other platforms you can try the third-party solution or other workarounds from the ticket comments.

There is also a built-in web server providing the REST API to open files.

It will work with the relative paths only when the IDE is already running and the project is open: http://localhost:63342/api/file/relative/to/module/root/path/to/file.kt.

With the JetBrains Toolbox App installed one will be able to use jetbrains:// protocol for navigation, it's work in progress and should be available in 2019.2.

See JBProtocolNavigateCommand.kt for the reference:

// handles URLs of the following types:

// jetbrains://idea/navigate/reference?project=IDEA
// [&reference[X]=com.intellij.navigation.JBProtocolNavigateCommand[.perform][#perform]]+
// [&path[X]=com/intellij/openapi/project/impl/JBProtocolNavigateCommand.kt[:23[:1]]]+
// [&selection[X]=25:5-26:6]+

Sample URL:

jetbrains://idea/navigate/reference?project=IDEA&fqn=com.intellij.openapi.application.JetBrainsProtocolHandler#getParameters

Toolbox URL matches regexp:

"${JetBrainsProtocolHandler.PROTOCOL}([\\w\\-]+)/navigate/reference\\?project=(?<project>[\\w]+)(&fqn[\\d]*=(?<fqn>[\\w.\\-#]+))*(&path[\\d]*=(?<path>[\\w-_/\\\\.]+)(:(?<location1>[\\d]+))?(:(?<location2>[\\d]+))?)*(&selection[\\d]*=(?<line1>[\\d]+):(?<column1>[\\d]+)-(?<line2>[\\d]+):(?<column2>[\\d]+))*"

There will be also UI for copying TBX protocol URLs directly from the editor similar to the Copy Reference action in the context menu. The same will work for IDE settings navigation.

Answer 2

As an update to @CrazyCoder's answer

This works* on Mac currently. (unable to test on anything else personally)

* There are some issues:

• There is no context menu option for generating this link from clicking on a line of code
• The keybinding (see below) generates the incorrect path, and it needs to be modified manually by either changing the sources root temporarily, or typing the missing path parts by hand.

There is a keybinding you can use to generate the url, under Preferences > Keymap > Copy Path/Reference > Toolbox URL. Note that the cursor location when using the keybinding matters. From what I can tell, if the cursor is at the beginning or end of a line, it generates a url with &path=..., else it generates with &fqn=.... The fqn option will often link to the wrong area of the code, especially when interfaces, libraries, auto-wiring, or anything not a direct vanilla class/object/function is attempted to link to.

I have filed an issue with more details on the broken path generated by the keybinding: https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-290640