How does sbt integrate with IntelliJ?

Question

Is there a definite doc somewhere that explains all the magic that happens behind the "Typesafe Activator" generation of "IntelliJ supported" project?

The sbt build files look absolutely monstrous, and I have no idea what and where IntelliJ looks for.

This is frustrating as working from two different PCs the scala seed project refers to different hard-coded paths.

Is there a good place to start?

Answer 1

Last time I checked, the typesafe activator was using SBT as the underlying build tool. When creating an intellij project it would thus use the sbt-idea plugin. I guess a possible place to start would be that plugin's documentation.

However I think there is something else going on here. I think you have the activator installed on two different PCs and are trying to share the project between both PCs whether using version control or copying the folders.

The sbt-idea plugin will indeed write some absolute path in ideas project files (most likely the absolute paths to the sbt managed libraries in the ivy cache of your home folder) since this is required for the intellij project to work.

There should be no reason to "share" the idea project files, these should be considered computer specific and should not be checked into source control, or expected to work when copied from a random computer to another. You are expected to regenerate them for each computer the project is worked on.

If that sounds like a burden, you may want to install the Intellij scala plugin. Once installed, the sbt integration will allow you to import any sbt project even if you haven't generated the intellij support in the activator. Have a look at the features page , there is a video showing how to use the plugin.