How To Configure Kotlin In Your Project
Article Summary
Natalia Ukhorskaya from JetBrains shows how Kotlin's seamless Java interop makes adoption frictionless. Just create a .kt file and let IntelliJ do the heavy lifting.
This 2013 guide from the Kotlin team walks through configuring Kotlin in existing Java projects. It covers IntelliJ IDEA's automatic configuration notifications and setup options for different compilation targets and build tools.
Key Takeaways
- Kotlin files mix freely with Java code in existing projects
- IntelliJ auto-detects unconfigured modules and prompts setup notifications
- Choose JVM bytecode or JavaScript compilation targets per module
- Maven and Gradle projects configure via pom.xml or .gradle files
- Gradle users must place Kotlin files under 'kotlin' source root
IntelliJ IDEA automates Kotlin configuration through smart notifications, supporting JVM, JavaScript, Maven, and Gradle setups with minimal manual intervention.
About This Article
When installing Kotlin plugin version 0.13.1511 on Windows 7 64-bit systems, developers ran into filename and directory length restrictions. The package tree was too large and exceeded what Windows allowed, which blocked the plugin from installing properly.
JetBrains released the Kotlin plugin through official repositories with a leaner package structure. They also offered other ways to distribute it for systems that had strict limits on path lengths.
The plugin now works across different operating systems and IntelliJ IDEA versions. Developers on systems with path length constraints could finally set up Kotlin compilation for JVM bytecode and JavaScript targets without needing workarounds.