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?

Answer 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

Answer 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

Answer 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.

Answer 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.

Answer 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.

Answer 6

I'm using Version 12 of IntelliJ.

I solved a similar problem by creating an entirely new project and "Checking out from Version Control" Merging the two projects later was fairly easy.

Answer 7

1. Add build.gradle in your project's root directory.

2. Then just File -> Invalidate Caches / Restart

Here is a basic build.gradle for Java projects:

plugins {
    id 'java'
}

sourceCompatibility = '1.8'
targetCompatibility = '1.8'
version = '1.2.1'

Answer 8

To add to other answers. For me it was helpful to delete .mvn directory and then add build.gradle. New versions of IntelliJ will then automatically notice that you use Gradle.