Make tab indent the current line

Question

I'm using IntelliJ IDEA to write Java and finding the default Tab behaviour (inserting a tab at the cursor position) quite annoying. I want it to behave like Shift-Tab.

Shift-Tab de-indents the cursor line if there is no selection, or every line in the selection if there is one, regardless of the cursor's position on the line. I tried to make Tab behave the same way by changing the keymap settings: I unbound the Tab key from Editor Actions → Tab so that it'd perform Edit → Indent Selection. But that only makes it indent the selection: if there's no selection, pressing Tab now does nothing.

It appears that the de-indent action for Shift-Tab is actually Editor Actions → Unindent Selection, but there's no corresponding action for indenting.

How can I make the Tab key indent the current line (increase the indent by one stop) if there is no selection?

Answer 1

1. Remove the keyboard shortcut from "Tab"
2. Add "Tab" as a keyboard shortcut to "Indent Line or Selection". When the dialog pops up asking you to "Leave" or "remove", click "Leave".

This works on at least IDEA 14+ but I haven't tested it on anything before that

Answer 2

You can press Ctrl+W which selects the nearest item to the cursor and then press Tab to indent or Shift+Tab to unindent the current line.

Answer 3

Not exactly what you need, but you can try Code | Auto-Indent Lines. There is also a known bug about the difference in the selection indent/unindent behavior.