Target a Specific IDE

In this tutorial we will learn how to create a plugin that targets a specific IDE.

Plugins are configured to target IntelliJ Community Edition by default. The general process to target a specific IDE is to set the intellij.type attribute and optionally add any language specific plugins to your project's build.gradle file. Any plugins that you have listed as dependencies must also support your targeted IDE platform.

There are a couple of IDEs, PhpStorm for example, that do not have a specific IDE type and instead require that you target IntelliJ Ultimate instead.

Best Practice: target a specific platform

The main advantage of targeting a specific IDE is that it limits the available APIs that are included with your plugin to only those that are available to the targeted IDE. This can reduce the surface area of your plugin has as well as reduce the size of the final plugin. For this reason it is seen as a best practice to explicitly target a specific IDE platform.

Reference

• Configuring Build.Gradle to Target Products other than IntelliJ IDEA

• Configuring Plugin Projects Targeting PhpStorm

• Simple plugin for PyCharm

• Simple plugin for CLion

• Simple plugin for Rider

• https://plugins.jetbrains.com/docs/intellij/phpstorm.html#configuring-plugin-projects-targeting-phpstorm

• https://confluence.jetbrains.com/display/PhpStorm/Setting-up+environment+for+PhpStorm+plugin+development

Unanswered Questions

• How to target PhpStorm, Webstorm, Android Studio

  • Once figured out do pull request to example plugins