[//]: # (title: Popups)

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## Introduction

The IntelliJ Platform user interface makes extensive use of popups \- semi-modal windows that have no chrome (explicit closing buttons) and disappear automatically on focus loss.
Making use of these controls in your plugin ensures a consistent user experience between your plugin and the rest of the IDE.

Popups can optionally display a title, are optionally movable and resizable (and support remembering their size), and can be nested (show another popup when an item is selected).

The [`JBPopupFactory`](upsource:///platform/platform-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/ui/popup/JBPopupFactory.java) interface allows you to create popups that display different kinds of components, depending on your specific needs.
The most commonly used methods are:

| Method                          | Description                                                                                                      |
|---------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| `createComponentPopupBuilder()` | Generic, allows showing any [Swing](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/start/index.html) component. |
| `createPopupChooserBuilder()`   | For choosing one or more items from a plain `java.util.List`.                                                    |
| `createConfirmation()`          | For choosing between two options, and performing different actions depending on which option is selected.        |
| `createActionGroupPopup()`      | Show actions from an [Action Group](grouping_action.md) and executes the action selected by the user.            |

### Action Groups

Action group popups support different ways of choosing an action from the keyboard, in additional to the normal arrow keys.
By passing one of the constants in the [`JBPopupFactory.ActionSelectionAid`](upsource:///platform/platform-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/ui/popup/JBPopupFactory.java) enumeration, you can choose whether an action can be selected by pressing a key corresponding to its sequential number, typing part of its text (speed search) or pressing a mnemonic character.
For popups with a fixed set of items, the recommended selection method is sequential numbering;
for popups with a variable and potentially large number of items, speed search typically works best.

### List Popups

If you need to create a list-like popup which is more flexible than a simple [`JList`](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/javax/swing/JList.html) but don't want to represent the possible choices as actions in an action group, you can work directly with the [`ListPopupStep`](upsource:///platform/platform-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/ui/popup/ListPopupStep.java) interface and the [`JBPopupFactory.createListPopup()`](upsource:///platform/platform-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/ui/popup/JBPopupFactory.java) method.
Normally you don't need to implement the entire interface; instead, you can derive from the [`BaseListPopupStep`](upsource:///platform/platform-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/ui/popup/util/BaseListPopupStep.java) class.
The key methods to override are `getTextFor()` (returning the text to display for an item) and `onChosen()` (called when an item is selected).
By returning a new popup step from the `onChosen()` method, you can implement hierarchical (nested) popups.

### Showing Popup

Once you've created the popup, you need to display it by calling one of the `show()` methods.
You can let the IntelliJ Platform automatically choose the position based on the context, by calling `showInBestPositionFor()`, or specify the position explicitly through methods like `showUnderneathOf()` and `showInCenterOf()`.

 > The `show()` methods return immediately and do not wait for the popup to be closed.
 >
 {type="note"}

If you need to perform some action when the popup is closed, you can either attach a listener to it using the `addListener()` method, override a method of the popup contents such as [`PopupStep.onChosen()`](upsource:///platform/core-ui/src/openapi/ui/popup/PopupStep.java), or attach an event handler to your own component within the popup.