The Busy Plugin Developer’s Newsletter – Spring 2021

Jakub Chrzanowski

IntelliJ Platform Explorer

IntelliJ Platform Explorer is a web application introduced at the end of 2020 with the Get to the Extension Point blog post. This tool was created as part of JetBrains Marketplace and can be found in the Resources header menu. This tool presents a list of all the open-source IntelliJ Platform plugins hosted on GitHub. It provides information about the plugin itself and used technologies (build system, language, implemented Extension Points) for each plugin.

You may also be interested in the Extension Point List section of the IntelliJ SDK Documentation, which lists all the available Extension Points together with some extra details.

New engine behind IntelliJ Platform SDK docs

We have upgraded our documentation engine, so now you can browse IntelliJ Platform SDK documentation with full-text search and a new dark theme so you can even do it at night! To get better insights into our content, each page now contains a GitHub editing button and a feedback form – any constructive and specific feedback on our content is appreciated.

In addition, better navigation and user experience will help you save time digging through our documentation.

The Busy Plugin Developers series. Episode 0

We ran our first webinar in a new series of topics around the Marketplace and plugin development for IntelliJ-based IDEs. In the first episode, we talked about some valuable resources for planning, developing, and deploying plugins with the IntelliJ Platform SDK and the IntelliJ Platform Plugin Template. We also covered some of the free and paid plugins available and how to customize your plugin page in the Marketplace and many more topics.

Watch the recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6D5-xEaYig.

The Revamping Plugins series

This is our series where we share our experience of updating and aligning outdated plugins with the latest IntelliJ Platform SDK and JetBrains Marketplace Guidelines. We’ve covered two plugins so far, describing the process of revamping already existing products available in the Marketplace to make them better from both the development and the marketing perspectives:

• The Revamping Plugins series #1 – .ignore
• The Revamping Plugins series #2 – IDEA Feature Suggester

Plugin Ideas

JetBrains Marketplace recently got yet another new feature – Plugin Ideas – where you can navigate using, again, the Resources header menu on the Marketplace page. It’s a place for sharing ideas for plugins and functionality missing from IntelliJ-based IDEs – describe the concept, cast your vote, or use the ideas in your own concepts for building something very new! For more details and some backstory, check out the dedicated blog post.

IntelliJ Platform Plugin Template v0.9.0

IntelliJ Platform Plugin Template is a Github repository that provides a pure boilerplate template to speed up the setup phase of plugin development for both new and experienced developers. In the project’s README file, you’ll find out which parts we’ve covered for you.

The latest releases introduced Dependabot integration, tweaks (such as compatibility with macOS Big Sur), and a dependencies upgrade. Watch the repository to stay up-to-date with our recommended configuration!

SDK Docs Content Updates

Among all the changes in the IntelliJ Platform Plugin SDK documentation, we want to highlight two new articles here:

• UAST – Unified Abstract Syntax Tree – an abstraction layer on the PSI of different JVM languages. It provides a unified API for working with common language elements like classes and method declarations, literal values, and control flow operators.
• Editor – Text Selection – two actions for extending and shrinking selection let you adjust selected text based on the structure of the source code. This makes it easy to choose expressions, blocks, and function definitions and code like whole lines or tags in JavaDoc comments.
• Extension Point List – a list of the Extension Points available for implementation with information about the name, available implementations to check, and current status in the API context.

IntelliJ Platform Figma UI Kit

The design team has released the IntelliJ Platform Figma UI Kit, which will help you design the plugin interface using the Figma application:

• IntelliJ Platform UI Kit – a UI kit for IntelliJ Platform–based IDEs and plugins. Use our guidelines to create consistent and usable user interfaces.
• IntelliJ Icons – the plugin provides the ability to search and insert icons for IntelliJ-based IDEs. All the icons are also listed on the website.

Plugin development tools

We’re constantly working to improve our tooling around plugin development. After the release of Gradle 7.0, we’ve provided some compatibility changes, as well as changes related to the Bintray sunsetting and regular features and bug fixes:

• Gradle Grammar-Kit Plugin v2021.1.2
• Grammar-Kit v2021.1.1
• IntelliJ Plugin Verifier v1.256
• Gradle Changelog Plugin v1.1.2
• Gradle IntelliJ Plugin v0.7.2

Stay tuned and follow us on Twitter!

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