Getting to know IntelliJ: create executables

[Yassir Nasir]

Hi Trisha and Helen,
As an intelliJ user myself I am looking forward to reading your book and discovering more cool tips and tricks to get around.

Historically when it comes to creating executables such as jar files, i have known of developers switch IDE from intelliJ
just to carry out this simple task. Reason being, its just too over-complicated to do in intelliJ! What are your thoughts?

[Trisha Gee]

Great question.  I haven't had any problems creating JAR files myself, although I appreciate it is a two-step process which might seem a bit complicated. This tutorial walks through the process:

https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/creating-and-running-your-first-java-application.html#package

Personally, though, I wouldn't use an IDE to create a JAR file, unless it's only a pet project.  You really want a reproducible, automatable process for this, i.e. by using a build tool like Maven or Gradle. This way, the JAR will be produced the same way whether you create it on your own machine, in the continuous integration environment, or some other system.