The name under which the entry should be displayed is “Google this please!”. You could add your action declaration by hand but in IntelliJ we can also just hover over the class name and click “Register Action” to register our class within the plugin.xml file. This file contains general metadata about a plugin as well as declarations of what the plugin contributes to the relevant implementation classes. In order for IntelliJ to know that we are listening for the aforementioned events, we need to register our action inside the plugin.xml file. Package import .AnAction import .AnActionEvent import public class GoogleThis extends AnAction Īs-is this is not doing anything yet.

Let’s create a class called GoogleThis in the package and have it extend the AnAction class. Actions are commands in IntelliJ that can be triggered via the context menu, the action runner ( Ctrl Shift A) or a custom keyboard shortcut, depending on their configuration. In order to use our plugin we need to implement a so called “action”.

The project template includes a run configuration called “Run Plugin” which lets us use the “Run” and “Debug” buttons in the top right toolbar to execute the runIde task. For now, we’ll only need the runIde task, which starts a new instance of IntelliJ IDEA with our plugin loaded.īut we don’t even need to mess with this panel all the time. The project creation wizard created a bunch of Gradle tasks for us that are available at the “Gradle” panel to the right.Ĭlicking through these Gradle tasks shows tasks related to running, testing, signing and distribution but only a few of them are really relevant for day-to-day operations. Make sure “Java” is selected and pick the JDK installed on your system from the “JDK” dropdown.Īfter clicking “Create” we’re greeted with a scaffold of everything we need to write and run our empty plugin on IntelliJ. The project creation wizard in IntelliJ IDEA provides a template called “IDE Plugin” which bootstraps an empty plugin built on top of Gradle. Getting startedįirst, let’s create our project. For development itself, we’ll be using the community edition of IntelliJ IDEA. The plugin APIs are best suited for Java and Kotlin. IntelliJ plugins run on the Java virtual machine (“JVM”), so naturally they’re written in a JVM-compatible language. The plugin we’re about to develop is called “Google This” and it provides a context menu item to search for the highlighted text on Google.

Intellij add plugin