Introduction To Programming

Installing IntelliJ

In this page, we will guide you through the installation of IntelliJ and Java on your personal computer. IntelliJ will be the default programming environment, the program in which you will write the code, that we use for this course. It comes pre-installed on university computers, so if you plan to only work from those you can skip the remainder of this page. If you run into issues installing the software, you can ask for help during the first week tutorial or on the discussion board.

Installing IntelliJ

The following video shows how the installation of IntelliJ looks like on Windows and guides you through the installation procedure. The process in the video may look slightly different, as the "Edu" edition has been replaced by the "Community" edition.

Installation Steps

The steps described in the video are the following:

  1. Download the Community Edition of IntelliJ.
  2. Make sure the right operating system is selected next to the download button (.exe Windows / .dmg MacOS / .tar.gz Linux)
  3. Click on Download. You may be asked in your browser to select a location to save it. It will then start downloading the Community Edition of IntelliJ.
  4. When the download is completed, open the .exe-file (or .dmg or .tar.gz) by double-clicking on it.
  5. Your computer will ask for permission to change files. Please click yes. Then click next.
  6. Select an installation directory for the program and click next.
  7. Select 64-bit of 32-bit launcher, depending on your Operating System. 64-bits is most common.
  8. Also select all four file associations. Then click next again.
  9. Click install. This might take a while. If it's done, click finish.
  10. You are ready and set. Good luck with this programming course!

Note that installing the program might be a bit different on Linux. See the Installation Instructions on the download page for further information.

Installing java

Lastly, it is needed to install a recent version of the Java Development Kit, if you haven't already one installed on your PC. You can download a recent version of the Java JDK via this link. On this page, select the Temurin 11 (LTS) version and select your operating system. In particular, make sure to choose either the 64-bit (x64) or 32-bit (x86) version depending on your operating system. Moreover, on Windows, select the JDK .msi download. If you are working on Mac, use the JDK .pkg download instead. After downloading, open the downloaded file and follow the installation steps that are shown on the screen to complete the installation.