Connection UX improvements in the AWS Toolkit for JetBrains

The AWS Toolkit for JetBrains is a plugin for JetBrains’s IDEs that makes it easier to write applications for AWS. Features include locally debugging Lambdas, browsing S3 buckets, viewing CloudWatch logs, and more. Today we’d like to share a number of improvements to the toolkit which make connecting to AWS more seamless:

• Better defaults – in order to connect to AWS the toolkit needs both a profile and a region, the toolkit will now attempt to select sensible defaults on load if no connection was previously configured.
• More visible profile and region – it’s now possible to select region and profile from the AWS Explorer itself, making it easier see where you’re connected and enabling quickly toggling between configurations.

• Enhanced error reporting – connection errors are now surfaced in the AWS Explorer along with quick-actions to fix the problem making it easier diagnose and resolve connection issues.
• More intuitive partition support – earlier in the year we launched support for GovCloud and China partitions, now it’s possible to switch between regions in different partitions in a single action using the region menu.
• Improved handling of MFA on startup – when using MFA you’ll only be prompted to enter your login at the point that it’s needed, rather than asking on start-up – meaning less distractions in your workflow.
• More consistent change detection of credentials files – better file modification detection logic for ~/.aws/config and ~/.aws/credentials files means changes made outside the IDE (e.g. edits to the files using a different text editor other than the IDE)

You can track our development and file an issue on our GitHub repo if needed. Hope this blog was useful and enabled you to unlock the latest features for a better experience in the IDEs. The AWS Toolkit for JetBrains is open source and we would be happy to hear your feedback and feature requests.