Add Maven support to an existing project

Add Maven support

1. Open an existing project, for example, a Java project.

2. In the Project tool window Alt+1, select the module or the project directory to which you want to add Maven.

3. Press Ctrl+Shift+A and type Add Framework Support.

   Once the action is found, click it to open the Add Framework Support dialog.

4. In the dialog that opens, select Maven from the options on the left and click OK.

   

   IntelliJ IDEA adds a default POM to the project and generates the standard Maven layout in Project tool window.

   

   IntelliJ IDEA also creates a corresponding structure with Lifecycle and Plugins in the Maven tool window.

5. Open the generated POM and specify a groupId. The artifactId and version are specified automatically.

   

   Every time you change the POM, IntelliJ IDEA displays a popup suggesting to import your changes.

Create an executable JAR

You can conclude the following optional steps to create an executable JAR.

1. Click to build project. IntelliJ IDEA generates target folder. Note that IntelliJ IDEA only compiles sources and doesn't create either JAR file or Manifest file.

2. Create a Manifest file in the resources directory.

   Right-click the directory, select New | Directory to create the META-INF subdirectory. Then right-click the subdirectory, select New | File to create the MANIFEST.MF file.

   

3. Open the MANIFEST.MF file in the editor and add information about your main class.

   Check the following code:

   Main-Class: com.company.MyApp

   Alternatively, we can ask Maven to add this line of code into the MANIFEST.MF file with the following code in pom.xml:

   <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId> <configuration> <archive> <manifest> <mainClass> com.company.MyApp </mainClass> </manifest> </archive> </configuration> </plugin>

4. In your POM specify the Manifest file information, so you can use Maven to generate an executable jar file.

   

5. In the Maven tool window, in the Lifecycle list, double-click the install command to generate the jar file. IntelliJ IDEA generates the appropriate information in the target folder and an executable JAR in the Project tool window.

   

   You can right-click the generated JAR and select Run to execute the file.