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

There was one additional step I had to follow, in addition to setting the maven build properties, adding the maven-compiler-plugin, and modifying the Java version in the .iml file. (each documented already in the other answers). You also have to set the compiler version in the settings.