IntelliJ IDEA

Working example project, which results from this tutorial, can be downloaded from github.com/vaadin-on-grails/quickstart-app.

Grails support in IntelliJ IDEA is added through Grails plugin. Make sure it is installed in your IntelliJ IDEA before you start with the tutorial.

Step 1

Go to http://grails.org/download and get the latest version of Grails. Unpack the Grails archive on your local computer and start up IntelliJ IDEA.

Step 2

Open the New Project window and select Grails from the list and click on Next button.

Optional

If it is your first Grails project in IDEA, click on Create... button and then select the root of your unpacked Grails archive. It will add Grails into IDEA.

Setup Grails

Step 3

Fill in the name of the project and choose the latest version of Grails.

Project name

Step 4

Click on Finish and on the next dialog, choose Run 'create app'.

Finish

Warning: sometimes, IDEA is not able to create Grails project and you end up with weird errors. In that case, try to upgrade IDEA version or run grails create-app my-app in console. Then after that open the project in IDEA.

Step 5

Open file BuildConfig.groovy and add Vaadin plugin compile ":vaadin:7.6.1".

Vaadin plugin

The latest version of the plugin is always available on http://grails.org/plugin/vaadin

Now we need to tell IDEA to reload dependencies. Run grails compile or refresh the dependencies as shown on the following picture.

Vaadin plugin

Synchronize Grails setting should be performed always when you run into issues with dependencies.

Step 6

Run grails vaadin-quickstart that will generate sample code to easier project configuration.

Vaadin plugin

The command vaadin-quickstart will generate MyUI.groovy and remove URL mapping inside UrlMapping.groovy.

Optional

We have to disable Grails to take control over the URLs, so Vaadin can do it instead. Open UrlMappings.groovy file and make sure the URL mapping is empty, so the content of the file is the following.

class UrlMappings {
    static mappings = {
    }
}

If you see unable to resolve class com.vaadin.grails.VaadinConfiguration error during compile, compile the project once more. There an issue with Grails together with IntelliJ IDEA and it is not possible to compile the project in the first run. Note that everything will work properly and you can ingnore that error.

Step 8

We are ready to run the application. Click on the little green triangle in toolbar.

Compile app

You can also press Alt+Cmd+G on Mac OS or Ctrl+Alt+G on Windows and type run-app in order to run the application.

Step 9

Run the application again and a Vaadin application with a single Home label will be available on http://localhost:8080/ria-app in your browser.

Running app