Question

Is there any editor for Java that is capable of highlighting all inherited members? It seems to be a very useful feature to aid in understanding the structure of the derived class that accesses members of the base class(es). I’m personally using Intellij-IDEA and if you are aware of any way to that there, please do share. All other editors are welcome!

For example you can sometimes see the following scenario (and please do not consider this example serious).

class A {
    ...
    protected int a;
    protected int x;
    ...
}

class B extends A {
    ...
    protected int b;
    void isntThatCoolIfSomeoneOverridesA() {
        a = b;
        x = b * b;
    }
    ...
}

UPDATE: extended the example

The usage of a and x in class B needs to be highlighted, because both are the inherited data members of class A.

Answer 1

To answer your question; no I don’t know of any IDE that highlights fields in that way.

I can kind of see the reason you would like it. If you are using IntelliJ and on the field you hold down the Ctrl key and hover over the field it tells you where it is defined.

I know this is a bit off topic but if the reason you want this syntax highlighting for inherited methods could it be that the codebase you are working on uses to much inheritance and not not enough composition?