Consolidate content and associated *-meta.xml files in the project view

[Chris Watson]

It would be nice if the metadata files were hidden, but easily showable. For instance by making classes act as closed folders which you can open to show the metadata file that applies to them. For now I have all the .cls-meta.xml files hidden, but when I create a new class IntelliJ tells me that the created file is hidden.

UPDATE: In the comments, a solution is shown based on the standard IntelliJ Scopes feature. This enhancement is now intended to track an IC-specific solution in which the content and metadata files are presented as parts of a single concept in the UI.

[Chris Watson]

Just found out also that hiding the metadata files makes it so that they don't get generated. This causes errors when it comes to deploying

[Scott Wells]

Chris, how are you hiding the metadata files? You should be able to do so using IntelliJ's Scopes feature with a scope like:

Name - Hide meta.xml

Pattern - !file:*-meta.xml

Is that what you're doing?

[Chris Watson]

I was actually making a rule under Settings -> Editor -> File Types -> Ignored Files and Folders. I can't figure out how to hide them using the Scope feature

[Scott Wells]

Chris, after creating the scope shown above, you can selected it in the Project view scope selector:

Let me know if that doesn't do what you're wanting.

[Chris Watson]

Ingenious! Haha. It would still be nice if there was a way to treat the Apex Classes as folders with the meta.xml files inside, but this is a nice workaround for now

[Scott Wells]

Glad the workaround works for you. I did look at having content files with companion metadata files be branch nodes in the project tree at one point. IntelliJ itself does this with UI forms where the branch node contains the Java source and the XML layout definition. I'll keep this enhancement around to track that type of change.

[Scott Wells]

Delivered in 1.7.8.0. Now meta.xml files are hidden by default with a context menu option to show/hide them as desired.

[Scott Wells]

Removing component: IntelliJ IDEA (automated comment)