Best way to add Gradle support to IntelliJ Project

Question

I have looked around quite a bit and haven't found the best solution to convert an existing IntelliJ project to Gradle. I work in a team environment and we currently share the .ipr file as we have a few build configurations that we track. We will be getting rid of those in favor of Gradle eventually but I can't screw things up too much until the Gradle conversion is done.

Also, our Java source files are located in the root of the src directory instead of src/main/java as is standard.

Is there a way I can add Gradle to my project that won't make me delete and recreate my IntelliJ project and won't screw everyone else up when they do a Git pull?

Solution 1

Add:

build.gradle 

in your root project folder, and use plugin for example:

apply plugin: 'idea'
//and standard one
apply plugin: 'java'

and with this fire from command line:

gradle cleanIdea 

and after that:

gradle idea

After that everything should work

Solution 2

There is no need to remove any .iml files. Follow this:

• close the project
• File -> Open... and choose your newly created build.gradle
• IntelliJ will ask you whether you want:
  • Open Existing Project
  • Delete Existing Project and Import
• Choose the second option and you are done

Solution 3

Another way, simpler.

Add your

build.gradle

file to the root of your project. Close the project. Manually remove "*.iml" file and/or ".idea" directory. Then choose "Import Project...", navigate to your project directory, select the build.gradle file and click OK.

Solution 4

In IntelliJ 2017.2.4 I just closed the project and reopened it and I got a dialog asking me if I wanted to link with build.gradle which opened up the import dialog for Gradle projects.

No need to delete any files or add the idea plugin to build.gradle.

Solution 5

Just as a future reference, if you already have a Maven project all you need to do is doing a gradle init in your project directory which will generates build.gradle and other dependencies, then do a gradle build in the same directory.

View more solutions

Comments

[Trisha]

To answer the question of your source directory - you need to override the default source directory with sourceSets. See how we did this in the MongoDB Java driver: github.com/mongodb/mongo-java-driver/blob/…

[Marquis Blount]

when attempting this solution did anyone come across the error "Module 'xx' is not backed by gradle? if so how was it resolved

[Amala]

Thanks this was driving me crazy and I couldn't figure out how to make IntelliJ refresh the projects dependencies after adding it to build.gradle.

[panza]

gradle idea (that depends on ideaProject, ideaModule, ideaWorkspace) did not work for me as ideaModule kept failing. Instead, the task gradle ideaProject worked fine and the project is now Gradle-enabled.

[Yar]

Alright there is a problem with this approach. You'll get a "dependencies cannot be applied to groovy.lang.closure" error. Check out this solution instead: stackoverflow.com/a/17168175/2517730

[barracuda317]

How can i fix the problem, that the new project has to be in another folder?

[Alex H.]

Can confirm this works nicely. Just run gradle init in the project root, then you'll get the dialog next time you open the project.

[xeruf]

This is somewhat outdated, since the idea Gradle plugin still resorts to the file-based idea project, while the folder-based project is standard and much more handy

[user25]

well I don't have global local gradle on my system, usually it downloads specific gradle version for every project separately gradle: command not found...

[NOTiFY]

Does this add the JARs from your Project Structure | Libraries as dependencies and the create an EAR (using the plugin) as defined the in Project Structure | Artifacts?

[Michal Kordas]

@NOTiFY I doubt it does. It's equivalent to checking out project from scratch.

[NOTiFY]

@Michal Kordas I added all the dependencies by hand, didn't take anywhere near the time i expected and now add the WAR, JAR & EAR creation. There's a feature request for this at JetBrains youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEABKL-6990

[Guy Coder]

Of interest: Creating New Gradle Builds - Notes: gradle init can generate various different types of projects, and even knows how to translate simple pom.xml files to Gradle.

[Jesse Barnum]

Better instructions would be helpful. What does "use plugin for example" mean? Am I supposed to type those commands somewhere? Also, "gradle cleanIdea" just gives me an error: Task 'cleanIdea' not found in root project 'HamsterBall'.