Libraries, projects, modules and packages in Intellij Idea

Question

I'm a beginner programmer and I'm learning how to work with Intellij IDEA. A project in IntelliJ IDEA has some different structures like libraries, modules and packages.

Can someone explain what the difference is between those structures and when to use a particular structure? e.g. I can't choose my package name (of a class) arbitrarily when it's already part of a module. What is the connection between those? I'm primarily having difficulties understanding the difference between a package and a module. (characters)

Answer 1

A project in intellij consists of modules. Modules can be java modules, or android modules or whatever. Modules contain your java code and all that stuff. A Module can reference a library which can be a project library or a global library. Global libraries have to be defined only once. Project library in every project you need them.

Packages are a java concept and are IDE independent.

Lets say I wanna do a little game. I would create a intellij Project called "mySuperGame". Then I would create two java modules from intellij, called "logic" and "ui". In the module settings of "ui" I would specify a project library to use opengl and a dep. to "logic". The package name of my logic classes would be "com.mysupergame.logic.XXX".

See http://confluence.jetbrains.com/display/IDEADEV/Structure+of+IntelliJ+IDEA+Project for more information.