stop IntelliJ IDEA to switch java language level every time the pom is reloaded (or change the default project language level)

Question

Using IntelliJ 12, I have a java project and I use maven with a pom.xml. My project is using java8, but it seems the default project language level has been set to 6 while i

Answer 1

As per Mark's comment, here is how to do it:

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>3.5.1</version>
            <configuration>
                <source>1.8</source>
                <target>1.8</target>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

Answer 2

For me the solution of updating the POM (plugins plus properties) to the required Java compiler version (1_7 in my case) worked. However as the .iml file for each project was generated with original pom (with default compiler version of 1_5 as explained by someone above) has a JDK version of 1_5, this still overrides the pom version.

I deleted the .idea folder manually and imported the module into IntelliJ with a reimport from the updated pom. When I reimported the Module from updated POM,I could see that the iml files had the updated JDK version (1_7 in my case) .

Answer 3

A shorter version of vikingsteve's answer is:

<properties>
  <maven.compiler.source>1.8</maven.compiler.source>
  <maven.compiler.target>1.8</maven.compiler.target>
</properties>