How to import multi-module project in IntelliJ IDEA?

Question

I'm used to Spring and Maven projects where I set up a multi-module project in Maven with projects like:

app-web
app-models
app-services
app-common

I'm now getting into using Play Framework 2 (Scala) and sbt.

Is there a similar concept with Play and sbt that I could group all of these projects into a single IntelliJ IDEA solution and sbt?

Answer 1

IntelliJ IDEA 13 (the latest version is 13.1.3) comes with the built-in SBT support, and the Ultimate edition adds Play support.

A multi-module sbt project can be imported to IDEA and is fully supported out of the box however it's Play-based or not (they're sbt projects after all).

You should try it out yourself with the following very simplistic build file build.sbt (or just generate a Play project with play new or better now activator new [your-project-name] play-scala):

lazy val a, b, c = project

and the following project/build.properties:

sbt.version=0.13.5

Nothing but these two above files are needed to get you started with sbt/activator.

In IDEA, open the project using File > Open... and select build.sbt.

Click OK to see another window where you specify additional configuration options for the project. Then the modules show up.