Currently, even with 'Make build in background' option checked, Ant immediately displays and populates the output toolwindow and upon completion steals focus to that window. Furthermore, the ant task execution progress is NOT shown in the status bar and background tasks window. I want the Ant compilation to work exactly like the new Build->Make Project works when 'Compile in background' is enabled. If you have 'Make build in background' checked in Ant Tool window properties for your build.xml file, then when executing a task it should run in the background, without showing the ant output toolwindow unless there is an error, and showing progress in the status bar/background tasks popup window. Note: The Ant Messages window should still be populated, but should only be displayed on error. Furthermore, upon task completion, the the focus should NOT be stolen from the Editor window. I have many ant tasks which I never care to see the output unless there is some kind of error which is extremely rare. Tasks like 'compile', 'package', 'deploy', 'deploy-remote', etc.