It is possible to use -d option in jvm args to specify directory to inspect.

What about more complex scopes? For example, here's the main scope in my project:

src:[CamelService]:*..*&&!file:*..EJS*&&!file:*..*_Tie.java&&!file:*..*_Stub.java

What is your purpose to inspect only part of a project? May be it is more convenient to set up project profiles on your scopes (which can be empty for some scopes, e.g. generated sources) and run server-side inspections with project settings?
Thanks.

The project is huge. A full run takes over hours to complete. A very good part of this is "stable" code however, that haven't been touched in years (and won't be touched anytime soon, unless we find an extremely serious bug), and I don't need to inspect that.

So I want to create multiple build configurations, with only one of those being run automatically after every code build. This achieves two goals: first, speed: Only one of the configured inspection builds will be run automatically after every code build subject separation, but other scopes will be availabel, if we need to run them. Second, we have different people working in different parts of the project, and it would be nice if I could see inspection results only for the modules I'm assigned to.

Thanks.
So scopes are workaround. But with scope differ from the whole project global inspections such as Unused Declarations, Declaration access can be weaker and so on would work much longer. That's why I would prefer smth about special scopes settings for server in ipr file. Do you agree?

The second point is more likely limitation of the current UI. I hope that it will be improved.

Scopes aren't just a workaround. The selected inspection profile for each scope can be different – we don't run many inspecitons on "old" code, but newer parts of the system get a more strict treatment. That's currently configured in the ipr file, and it works – but takes too long to run.

Oh, a part of this request motivation is quite simple: "I can select different profiles and scopes to analyze on IDEA, and I'd like to do the same in TeamCity". The two products go hand in hand, so I'd expect the same degree of functionality in similar areas like inspection runs.

An important feature for me would be to split the inspection report into parts according to modules/packages/whatever division. This is important in bigger projects (our has around 30 developers) since no developer is interested in issues that do not belong to his/her code. Currently, developers do not look at TC reports since there is too many issues found but too little of them actually relates to their own code.
I personally would appreciate if the report could be split when it is finished. The shown selection could be chosen based on the package and/or module. There would be one report only, but many ways to look at it. I believe, this would be more flexible, every person could choose his/her own selection and no new reports would have to be created. Also, this would not break any global inspections.
There is more disscussed at http://www.intellij.net/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=266643&tstart=0

Scope can be selected from combo box

This would be very useful to us, too. Kirill, where is this selectable? I tried to set this up this afternoon with v2.0 and I didn't see any corresponding option. I agree that it should be possible to set up an inspection run profile that only inspects a certain scope (since this allows different profiles with different frequencies and configurations). Allowing different views over a single report is also a great idea.

Now it is possible to pass -Didea.exclude.patterns/idea.include.patterns property. Syntax is based on IDEA's file-scope syntax: (([$module name$])?$relative to content root ant path pattern$;)+ where path pattern should correspond to some directory.

E.g -Didea.exclude.patterns=testData/**;testdata/**;help/**;test/**;maverick/**;src/tips/**;.reports/**;[testData]/**

Unfortunately it is impossible to support all IDEA scopes (e.g. *.java) efficiently thus simplified syntax and inability of reuse scopes defined in project.

Anna