Play Framework: Setting up your preferred IDE

Working with Play is easy. You don’t even need a sophisticated IDE, because Play compiles and refreshes the modifications you make to your source files automatically, so you can easily work using a simple text editor.
However, using a modern Java or Scala IDE provides cool productivity features like auto-completion, on-the-fly compilation, assisted refactoring and debugging.

Eclipse

Generate configuration

Play provides a command to simplify Eclipse configuration. To transform a Play application into a working Eclipse project, use the eclipse command:

without the source jars:

[My first application] $ eclipse

if you want to grab the available source jars (this will take longer and it’s possible a few sources might be missing):

[My first application] $ eclipse with-source=true

IntelliJ

Generate configuration

Play provides a command to simplify Intellij IDEA configuration. To transform a Play application into a working IDEA module, use the idea command from the play console:

without the source jars:

[My first application] $ idea

if you want to grab the available source jars (this will take longer and it’s possible a few sources might be missing):

[My first application] $ idea with-sources=yes

This will create the configuration files IntelliJ needs to open your play application as a project. The files are named .iml and -build.iml.

Now we can open the project in IntelliJ. To do this select, ‘File > Open…’ (IntelliJ 12.1.6) and select the “My first application” folder.