How to Build Developer Tools on Top of IntelliJ Platform

How to Build Developer Tools on Top

of IntelliJ Platform

Dmitry Jemerov, CTO, JetBrains

Tuesday, July 30, 13

What is IntelliJ Platform

• Foundation of all IntelliJ-based IDEs

• Provides building blocks for developer tools

• Open-source, Apache 2 license

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JetBrains Productson IntelliJ Platform

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IntelliJ IDEA

• Where it all began

• Started as monolithic IDE

• Refactored over the years to modularize and introduce extension points

• For more history: Malmö, September 7,http://www.jetbrains.com/jetbrainsday/

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"Small" IDEs

• PyCharm, RubyMine, WebStorm, PhpStorm, AppCode, C++ IDE, <to be announced>

• Set of bundled plugins + UI customizations

• Same source tree as IntelliJ IDEA

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MPS

• Meta Programming System - IDE for domain specific languages

• Uses IntelliJ IDEA's overall UI framework

• Replaces text editing and PSI-based features with its own DSL framework

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Kotlin Compiler

• Same code for command-line compiler and IDE features in plugin

• Uses low-level parsing/PSI framework and Java PSI

• 7.6M distribution

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UpSource

• http://upsource.jetbrains.com/

• Online code browser

• Uses core PSI, indexing, Java language support (other languages coming soon)

• Web-based UI

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External Productson IntelliJ Platform

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Android Studio

• http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/studio.html

• Repackaged IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition

• Custom UI for Gradle-based project model

• Developed in partnership with JetBrains

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GuideWire

• http://www.guidewire.com/

• Insurance business

• Gosu programming language

• Lots of domain-specific UI

• Commercial

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mbeddr

• http://mbeddr.wordpress.com/

• MPS-based tool for embedded development (generates C code)

• Open-source

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esn.me

• http://www.planetframework.com/

• Commercial Python framework for real-time Web

• IDE based on PyCharm with custom plugin

• Acquired by EA, no longer supported

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Realaxy

• ActionScript IDE based on MPS

• Commercial

• No longer in development, last released in 2010

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IntelliJ Platform Components

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core

• Virtual file system, lexer, parser, PSI, references

• Utilities: collections, concurrency etc.

• No UI

• No specific language support

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platform

• Action systen

• UI framework: toolwindows, dialogs etc.

• Text editor

• Diff

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lang

• Language-independent implementations of core code insight features

• Highlighting, navigation, completion, refactorings, code formatter and a whole lot more

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Other Platform Modules

• Local history

• Debugger framework

• Test runner framework

• VCS framework

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java-psi

• UI-less part of IntelliJ IDEA's Java support

• Parser, reference resolution, inspections etc.

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xml

• Parsing, DTD/XML Schema/RelaxNG, etc.

• DOM framework for XML-based DSLs

• Recently separated into non-UI and UI parts

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Other Platform Extensions

• Spellchecker

• Images support

• Regular expression support

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Community Edition Plugins

• Version control: Git, Mercurial, Subversion, CVS

• Build systems: Ant, Maven, Gradle

• Tasks / issue tracker integration

• UI Designer

• Terminal

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IntelliJ Platform vs Eclipse/NetBeans RCP

• Not a general-purpose RCP

• Best for code-centric tools, a lot of stuff comes for free

• Not necessarily best for graphics-intensive tools

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Product Opportunities

• Language IDEs: Haskell, Go, Lua, D, Perl, assembly, Verilog/VHDL

• Framework-specific IDEs

• Code analysis/exploration tools

• Game development?

• ERP?

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Plugin vs Product

• Start with plugin in any case

• Product lets you remove what you don't need, change what you don't like

• Product gives you control over branding

• Both plugins and products can use commercial license

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Product Licensing

• IntelliJ Platform is Apache 2 licensed, does not restrict licensing of derivative products

• Talk to us if you need components only available in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate

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Building a Product

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idea.platform.prefix

• System property used as prefix for names of plugin and application info files

• Set in default VM options

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Product Plugin File

• <idea.platform.prefix>Plugin.xml

• For example, IdeaPlugin.xml for IDEA CE

• Same format as regular plugin.xml file

• Can include chunks of components from platform

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<idea-plugin version="2" xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude">

<xi:include href="/META-INF/IdeaPlugin.xml" xpointer="xpointer(/idea-plugin/*)"/></idea-plugin>

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Application Info File

• <idea.platform.prefix>ApplicationInfo.xml

• For example, IdeaApplicationInfo.xml for IDEA CE

• Single entry point for all branding info

• Patched by build script to include build number etc.

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<component> <version codename="Community Edition" major="13" minor="0" eap="true"/> <company name="JetBrains s.r.o." url="http://www.jetbrains.com/"/> <build number="__BUILD_NUMBER__" date="__BUILD_DATE__"/> <logo url="/idea_community_logo.png"/> <about url="/idea_community_about.png"/></component>

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Building the Product

• build/scripts/dist.gant

• IntelliJ project file built with JPS (JetBrains' homegrown build system)

• Layout tasks used to build structure of product distribution

• Layout has common and OS-specific (Windows, Linux, Mac) parts

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def info = layout(targetDirectory) { dir("lib") { jar("util.jar") { module("util") module("util-rt") }

jar("openapi.jar") { openapiModules.each { module it} } }}

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Windows Launcher

• native/WinLauncher

• tools/LauncherGenerator

• buildWinLauncher() in utils.gant

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Distribution Scripts

• Windows - NSIS installer, scripts currently not open but likely will be

• Mac - DMG build script tied to our environment, roll your own

• Linux - just a .tar.gz

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Server Infrastructure

• Exception reporting

• Automatic updates and patches

• Plugin repository

• Usage statistics

• All URLs in ApplicationInfo.xml

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Contributing to IntelliJ Platform

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Contribution Workflow

• Sign the CLA

• Send us a pull request on GitHub

• Explain the motivation for the change

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Q&A

[email protected]@intelliyole

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