Ant task for compiling GUI forms (Intellij IDEA)

Question

How I can create a Ant task to compile GUI forms (XML) in Intellij IDEA? I use Scala and Java in my project. Java only for GUI class, and I create it with Intellij IDEA UI Designer.

Answer 1

IDEA provides a Ant task, javac2, that does this. It's a drop-in replacement for the standard javac Ant task.

First, you'll need to include something like the following near the top of your Ant build file.

<path id="javac2.class.path">
    <pathelement location="${idea.dir}/redist/forms_rt.jar"/>
    <pathelement location="${idea.dir}/redist/javac2.jar"/>
    <pathelement location="${idea.dir}/redist/annotations.jar"/>
</path>
<taskdef name="javac2" classname="com.intellij.ant.Javac2" classpathref="javac2.class.path"/>

Here "${idea.dir}" refers to the directory of your IDEA installation. Those jars are redistributable, so you can copy them into your project if you wish, and refer to them there. Once you've done that, just replace any calls to "javac" tasks with "javac2", and everything should just work.

To compile scala, of course, you'll need calls to either scalac or fsc, but those are unaffected by all of this.

Answer 2

Same problem here. Solved this way:

<property  name="idea.lib" value="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\JetBrains\\IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition 9.0.3\\lib"/>

<path id="javac2.classpath">
    <pathelement location="${idea.lib}/javac2.jar"/>
    <pathelement location="${idea.lib}/jdom.jar"/>
    <pathelement location="${idea.lib}/asm.jar"/>
    <pathelement location="${idea.lib}/asm-commons.jar"/>
    <pathelement location="${idea.lib}/jgoodies-forms.jar"/>
</path>
<taskdef name="javac2" classname="com.intellij.ant.Javac2" classpathref="javac2.classpath"/>