There was something magical the first time I used Zellij’s floating pane feature. With it overlaying what you’re working on, there’s next to no break in context which prevents any break in flow. I’ve been dying since to try to replicate that experience in each tool where it makes sense. I use the floating pane to have an terminal relevant to the work of the main pane I’m focused on that I can show and hide with a single keybind. Most of the time this is neovim in my main pane and a shell in the floating pane to carry out compilation, execute git commands, and more. Here’s the floating pane in all it’s glory:
Since discovering this in Zellij, I’ve been sorely missing this workflow when using Jetbrains IDEs. Luckily, we can achieve the same workflow in the Jetbrains IDEs with a couple tweaks.
Float
First, let’s adjust the terminal to be floating and center it on the screen. We can accomplish this by opening the terminal, clicking the options button in the top right corner, and selecting ‘View Mode > Float’. Now that the terminal pane is floating, move it to the center of the screen.
Keybind
Second, we’ll set a keybind for show and hide the terminal. It has a default already but I’ve personally set it to Ctrl-P + W to match zellij. We’ll set the keybinding by opening the settings window, selecting the “Keymap” settings group and searching for “terminal”. You’ll notice there’s a “terminal” action under the “Tool window” heading. Right click that and add a keybinding of your choice if the default doesn’t suit you.
Finale
Here it is in all it’s glory: