Play! 2.0 in IntelliJ IDEA

Play! Framework 1.x supported creating an IntelliJ IDEA project by the command: play idealize.

However while Play! Framework 2.0 is in beta that command does not work**.

So how do you get your Play! 2.0 project to open in IntelliJ IDEA? There are few different work arounds. Especially regarding integrating sbt.

However I have a quick way. For this to work you need both Play! 2.0 and Play! 1.2.x installed.

Create Play! 2.0 project:
/usr/local/lib/play-2.0-beta/play new helloworld
(I am assuming it was a Java project that you chose)

Rename project folder:
mv helloworld helloworld2

Create Play! 1.x project:
/usr/local/lib/play-1.2.4/play new helloworld

Create IntelliJ project:
cd helloworld;
/usr/local/lib/play-1.2.4/play idealize

Move IntelliJ files to Play! 2.0 project:
cd ..;
mv helloworld/helloworld.i* helloworld2/

Remove 1.x project and rename 2.0 folder:
rm -rf helloworld;
mv helloworld2 helloworld

Now you can open IntelliJ and then go to file/open project, then find and open helloworld/helloworld.ipr.


There will be some issues such as libraries etc but this a good start. For further tips try these suggestions.


** As of 11th of January 2012 it is not present in Play! 2.0. I fully expect Play! to create an idealize, eclipsify, netbeansify etc as soon as 2.0 is stable.