I think the synchronizing button is basicly a refresh so that your file system and what idea shows are the same. The garbage collection allows you to clean up objects that Idea created but is no longer using, instead of waiting for the jvm to do it ( this way the jvm isn't trying to garbage collect while you are trying to do something ). And yes, you can have idea run your ant tasks, just click on the ant tab and bring in your build file then select the target you want to run. There is more on the ant integration in Idea's help.

Also, you can subscribe to the intellij mailing lists for more info.

Idea is an awesome ide, it is so much fun to use.



Later,
Max