Having used Eclipse for more years than I care to admit, I\'m currently trying to get adjusted to IntelliJ 12 but I\'m having a hard time with the totally different UI metap
Ok. I worked it all out with googling and https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/help/viewing-modes.html . It's not obvious at all.
In Setting->Appearance & Behavior->Appearance: Side-by-side layouts on left and right will control whether left and right side splits are horizontal or vertical - you can also Control-click on the divider to switch.
Widescreen tool window layout switches whether vertical or horizontal toolbars get full height/width: on gives full height to side tool windows and off gives full width to bottom(top?).