How to share IDE layout in IntelliJ IDEA?

Question

I'm frequently changing projects and creating new ones, but I have a big a project that I work on a lot. The IDE layout (view positions, sizes and docking) evolves as I use it more and more. I'm looking for a way to automatically share IDE layout between projects in IDEA?

I would like to avoid re-setting up my environment every time I do File/New/Project. I also would like to avoid exporting/importing my configuration for every File/New/Project. Handling of updates would be a really nice one too, that is, when I resize the Project/Debug view in one project it changes in all of my projects that are created new or reopened. Essentially I would like to avoid any repetitive clicking whenever I switch context (project).

I'm really used to Eclipse storing the settings tied to the workspace and when a new project is created they have the same settings.

Answer 1

The closest functionality that I know of is Window/Store Current Layout as Default. It will save the current layout and it will be used for newly created projects.

But when you modify the layout and want to use that version as default, you have to first save it as default using the action mentioned above and then in other projects use Window/Restore Default Layout (ie. the changes to default layout won't be saved/applied to other projects automatically).

I would suggest opening a feature request on https://youtrack.jetbrains.com to enable sharing the layout automatically between all projects.