Say Hello to Ktor Early Access Program and New Plugin
We’re very excited to announce the Ktor Early Access Program, where you can get access (thus the name) to things we’re working on that won’t be available in the currently released version.
Often times we’d like to introduce new functionality or APIs that may not be backwards compatible, and get these out to you as soon as they’re ready for feedback. That’s what our EAP program is about. It’s important to understand that while these are not marked as releases, they do go through the same (if not more) tests and checks that our releases go through.
We do encourage folks to try EAPs builds, but also please understand that they are not official releases.
When and where
New builds and artifacts for EAPs will be released on a nightly basis. We’ll be building on any *-eap branches that we have as well as the default main branch. These will be made available on our public Space Repository.
We’re adding Space support to Package Search, so soon you’ll be able to search and add them directly from inside the IDE. For now, check out the EAP page for instructions on how to add the necessary dependencies.
Important – EAP artifacts will not be kept indefinitely. We’ll be cleaning them up on a frequent basis.
IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate Plugin
One other thing we’ve been working on is the new plugin for Ktor! This is a complete rewrite for Ktor and comes with a new wizard that makes it simpler to create Ktor applications.
A two-step process guides you through what’s needed to get your Ktor Server application. From selecting the basics of the application such as the name, engine to use, etc.
to choosing the exact features you want to add.
At any point you can also view and remove selected features
The plugin currently only provides new project functionality, but it also constitutes the basis for all the features we’ll be adding for Ktor to IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, including but not limited to inspections, navigation, and intentions specifically targeted to Ktor applications.
You can download the plugin either from within IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate or from the JetBrains Marketplace. Also check out the new tutorial on how to work with it.
A word on IntelliJ IDEA support
You may be wondering why we’re only going to be providing Ktor support for IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate. At JetBrains we make tools, amongst which are IDEs, languages, and frameworks (such as Ktor). Our goal is to provide the best experience for developers and to continue to be able to do this in a way that is sustainable as a business. In the case of Ktor, the framework itself is and will always remain free and Open Source, and licensed under Apache 2. However, tooling will only be available as part of IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, which is inline with our support for other frameworks. The existing plugin will remain open source and available, but will no longer be maintained past 1.5.2
For folks that want to create new projects, the Ktor Generator which is also in the process of being revamped, will be available. While we may add additional features to it in the future, generating projects will remain always free.
We do hope you try out the new plugin, as well as our EAPs and provide us with feedback to continue to improve Ktor!
