How to import and run existing plugins from intellij community edition repo

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18278440

  •  24-06-2022
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Question

I'm trying to import and run the IntelliJ git4idea (Git Integration) plugin in order to play around and contribute some of my own code.

I've pulled the Intellij community edition from the github repo, and imported the git4idea plugin as a project. I'm running the Intellij community edition

My main issue is this:

After importing all the modules, the git4idea module comes up as a general module type, and not a plugin module type.

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This means that when trying to create a new run\debug configuration, I get [none] under "Use classpath of module", instead of of the ability to select the git4idea plugin. This obviously results in a "Run configuration error: no plugin module specified for configuration".

enter image description here

So the question is - How can I change the general type of imported "git4idea" to plugin type?

Or better yet, what are the steps required in order to import and build/debug/run a plugin from the Intellij community edition repo?

Was it helpful?

Solution

I was able to solve this by manually reordering file directories, sorting out dependencies and editing the .iml file. The type of plugin is defined by changing type="JAVA_MODULE" to type="PLUGIN_MODULE".

...

This is the answer given by Dmitry Jemerov on the official Jetbrains plugin development forum:

The easiest answer to this is "don't". The IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition project is set up to be developed as a whole, and the dependencies are set up accordingly. If you want to hack on the Git plugin, you simply run IDEA using the provided run configuration, it runs with all plugins enabled, and you simply make whatever changes you need and test them using the main run configuration.

If you really want, you can set up a new plugin module and point it to the source code of the git4idea plugin inside the IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition Git checkout. This is not too hard, but it's something you'll need to do from scratch, and you can't use the existing .iml file.

OTHER TIPS

I had the same no plugin module specified for configuration issue. To work around it, instead of importing, I created a new plugin project and used the existing code directory.

when you import the intelij plugin projects

You should run the 'runIde' task in gradle.

Step-by-step instruction

  1. Build your IDEA plugin (usually done with gradle build).
  2. Start Intellij IDEA.
  3. If you have any project opened, go to menu "File->Close all projects" to return to Intellij IDEA startup screen.
  4. Install the plugin you've just built: on the left side of the "Welcome to Intellij IDEA" startup screen go to "Plugins", then click "gear" icon on the right side, it's located to the right of "Marketplace" and "Installed". From the pop-up menu select "Install Plugin from Disk...", navigate to plugin file (usually in build folder) and click "Ignore and continue" when you see the warning message saying something about signature.
  5. Restart Intellij IDEA.
  6. Open the folder with your IDEA plugin.
  7. Wait until IDEA imported your Gradle project.
  8. Put breakpoints inside your plugin code so you can debug it.
  9. Go to menu "Run->Edit configurations".
  10. In the "Run/Debug Configurations" window on the left side click "+".
  11. Select "Gradle" from the pop-up menu.
  12. On the right side change "Name" to "gradle-run-ide" (without quotes).
  13. On the right side under "Run", inside "Tasks and arguments" field enter runIde ("i" must be capital, other letters small).
  14. Click "OK" to save changes.
  15. Go to menu "Run->Debug 'gradle-run-ide'".
  16. A new, black-colored IDEA window should appear.
  17. In this black-colored IDEA window do whatever you need to do in order to invoke methods of your plugin. When you invoke them, the first IDEA window should stop you on breakpoints you set previously.

Happy debugging.

After changing type="JAVA_MODULE" to type="PLUGIN_MODULE" in *.iml file I was getting following error -

Error running 'IdeaPlugin': Wrong SDK type for plugin module

To fix this go to -

  1. Module Settings -> Platform settings -> SDKs.
  2. Click on Add new SDK
  3. Select Intellij Platform plugin SDK
  4. For home directory select your Inetllij installation dir
  5. Select JAVA SDK you want to use with it.

Once this is added got to Module Settings again

  1. Module Settings -> Project settings -> project.
  2. In Project SDK change the JAVA sdk to the SDK we just added in the above steps.
  3. Run/Debug you plugin now.
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