JetBrains released the newest version of its Java IDE, IntelliJ IDEA 13 last week. Today, it has announced improvements to better support Android. Improvements come from feedback taken between versions 12 and 13 of IntelliJ IDEA. 

“At JetBrains we’re always listening to developers, and Android developers are no exception,” the company wrote in its blog. “Based on this tight feedback loop, we’ve made a long list of changes to our award-winning IDE, which will hopefully make development of Android apps an even bigger pleasure.”

With IntelliJ IDEA 13, Android developers can expect:

A smarter XML editor: IntelliJ IDEA already included a graphical editor for layout files, but based on its feedback, a majority of Android developers prefer to edit XML files manually, so JetBrains improved its XML editor to make it smarter.

New XML test editor features, such as:
• User-defined XML attributes ordering
• Automatic insertion of required attributes
• Documentation popups for XML attributes
• Line breaks
• Built-in color pickers

Related file navigation: XML files and classes are commonly related in Android applications. In order to help tracking dependences between a pair of related files, IntelliJ IDEA now provides navigation through gutter icons.

Easier component prototyping: Android developers can now create components faster. IntelliJ IDEA allows for the creation of new fragments directly from the menu with the option of automatically generating basic layout files.

New Android-specific code inspections: “It can tell you when the onclick attribute of a layout element tries to reference a method that does not exist, and then offers a quick fix to create a stub for such method,” according to JetBrains.

Other features include a user interface around the logcat command, manifest file editing, multi-device preview, SQLite database access from the IDE, and a built-in 9-patch editor.

You can learn more about JetBrains’ IntelliJ IDEA 13 here.