Syntax highlighting

The IDE editor usually provides syntax highlighting, it can show both the structures, the language keywords and the syntax errors with visually distinct colors and font effects.^[3]

Code completion

Code completion is an important IDE feature, intended to speed up programming. Modern IDEs even have intelligent code completion.

Refactoring

Advanced IDEs provide support for automated refactoring.^[3]

Version control

An IDE is expected to provide integrated version control, in order to interact with source repositories.^[3]

Debugging

IDEs are also used for debugging, using an integrated debugger, with support for setting breakpoints in the editor, visual rendering of steps, etc.^[9]

Code search

IDEs may provide support for code search. Code search has two different meanings. First, it means searching for class and function declarations, usages, variable and field read/write, etc. IDEs can use different kinds of user interface for code search, for example form-based widgets^[10] and natural-language based interfaces. Second, it means searching for a concrete implementation of some specified functionality.^[11]

Visual programming

Visual programming is a usage scenario in which an IDE is generally required. Visual Basic allows users to create new applications by moving programming, building blocks, or code nodes to create flowcharts or structure diagrams that are then compiled or interpreted. These flowcharts often are based on the Unified Modeling Language.

This interface has been popularized with the Lego Mindstorms system and is being actively perused by a number of companies wishing to capitalize on the power of custom browsers like those found at Mozilla. KTechlab supports flowcode and is a popular open-source IDE and Simulator for developing software for microcontrollers. Visual programming is also responsible for the power of distributed programming (cf. LabVIEW and EICASLAB software). An early visual programming system, Max, was modeled after an analog synthesizer design and has been used to develop real-time music performance software since the 1980s. Another early example was Prograph, a dataflow-based system originally developed for the Macintosh. The graphical programming environment "Grape" is used to program qfix robot kits.

This approach is also used in specialist software such as Openlab, where the end-users want the flexibility of a full programming language, without the traditional learning curve associated with one.

Language support

Some IDEs support multiple languages, such as GNU Emacs, IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse, MyEclipse, NetBeans, MonoDevelop, JDoodle or PlayCode.

Support for alternative languages is often provided by plugins, allowing them to be installed on the same IDE at the same time. For example, Flycheck is a modern on-the-fly syntax checking extension for GNU Emacs 24 with support for 39 languages.^[12] Another example is JDoodle, an online cloud-based IDE that supports 88 languages. Eclipse, and Netbeans have plugins for C/C++, Ada, GNAT (for example AdaGIDE), Perl, Python, Ruby, and PHP, which are selected between automatically based on file extension, environment or project settings.

Implementation

IDEs can be implemented in various languages, for example:

• GNU Emacs using Emacs Lisp and C;
• IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse and NetBeans, using Java;
• MonoDevelop using C#.

Attitudes across different computing platforms

Unix programmers can combine command-line POSIX tools into a complete development environment, capable of developing large programs such as the Linux kernel and its environment.^[13] In this sense, the entire Unix system functions as an IDE.^[14] The free software GNU toolchain (including GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), GNU Debugger (GDB), and GNU make) is available on many platforms, including Windows.^[15] The pervasive Unix philosophy of "everything is a text stream" enables developers who favor command-line oriented tools to use editors with support for many of the standard Unix and GNU build tools, building an IDE with programs like Emacs^[16][17][18] or Vim. Data Display Debugger is intended to be an advanced graphical front-end for many text-based debugger standard tools. Some programmers prefer managing makefiles and their derivatives to the similar code building tools included in a full IDE. For example, most contributors to the PostgreSQL database use make and GDB directly to develop new features.^[19] Even when building PostgreSQL for Microsoft Windows using Visual C++, Perl scripts are used as a replacement for make rather than relying on any IDE features.^[20] Some Linux IDEs such as Geany attempt to provide a graphical front end to traditional build operations.

On the various Microsoft Windows platforms, command-line tools for development are seldom used. Accordingly, there are many commercial and non-commercial products. However, each has a different design commonly creating incompatibilities. Most major compiler vendors for Windows still provide free copies of their command-line tools, including Microsoft (Visual C++, Platform SDK, .NET Framework SDK, nmake utility).

IDEs have always been popular on the Apple Macintosh's classic Mac OS and macOS, dating back to Macintosh Programmer's Workshop, Turbo Pascal, THINK Pascal and THINK C environments of the mid-1980s. Currently macOS programmers can choose between native IDEs like Xcode and open-source tools such as Eclipse and Netbeans. ActiveState Komodo is a proprietary multilanguage IDE supported on macOS.