Change the default location of Pycharm Project

Question

I am using PyCharm 3.4.1 on Ubuntu 14.04. For new project it suggests ~/PyCharmProjects for storing project folders. Is it possible to change the location and name of this proposed folder?

(I couldn't find any reference to changing it in the interface, on the JetBrains site, or in the settings files. Either it isn't possible or (I hope) I missed something.)

Note, it is not a duplicate of Can I change the location/name of PyCharmProjects? - I am aware that it is possible to change proposed path for every created project - but I want defaults that I like.

Answer 1

In fact, this is possible. In the IDE settings folder (https://www.jetbrains.com/help/pycharm/project-and-ide-settings.html), under config/options/recentProjectDirectories.xml, you can add an option lastProjectLocation. It wil honor this setting when creating new projects. My recentProjectDirectories.xml looks like this:

<application>
  <component name="RecentDirectoryProjectsManager">
    <option name="lastProjectLocation" value="$USER_HOME$/my_projects" />
  </component>
</application>

In fact, for most options that you want to customize, you could do a diff of the config/options folder before and after you make the change: this way you can find out a lot about how PyCharm (or any IntelliJ tool) configures its editor.