Developing Android Studio Plugins With Gradle

Mihaly Nagy from Groupon reveals you don't need IntelliJ IDEA to build Android Studio plugins—just Gradle and a text editor. If you've automated tasks 3 times, it's time to build a custom IDE tool.

This hands-on tutorial walks through creating Android Studio plugins using only Gradle, eliminating the need for IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition. Nagy breaks down the complete setup from folder structure to publishing, making IDE customization accessible to any Android developer comfortable with Gradle.

Key Takeaways

• Start with just a build.gradle file and plugin.xml, no IntelliJ IDE required
• Use runIdea gradle task to test plugins in sandbox environment instantly
• Android Studio 3.0 is based on IntelliJ IDEA Open Source project
• Deploy via buildPlugin task generating ready-to-install zip files
• Plugin components use standard Java Swing for familiar UI development

The article includes a clever trick for targeting specific Android Studio versions by diving into the source code itself.