§Installing Play
This page shows how to download, install and run a Play application. There’s a built in tutorial that shows you around, so running this Play application will show you how Play itself works!
Play is a series of libraries available in Maven Repository, so you can use any Java build tool to build a Play project. However, much of the development experience Play is known for (routes, templates compilation and auto-reloading) is provided by SBT. In this guide we describe how to install Play with SBT.
§Prerequisites
Play requires Java 1.8. To check that you have the latest JDK, please run:
java -version
You should see something like:
java version "1.8.0_121"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_121-b13)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.121-b13, mixed mode)
If you don’t have the JDK, you have to install it from Oracle’s JDK Site.
§Installing Play with SBT
We provide a number of sample projects that have an ./sbt launcher in the local directory. These can be found on our download page. This launcher will automatically download dependencies without you having to install SBT ahead of time.
Refer to the SBT download page to install the SBT launcher on your system, which provides the sbt command. Otherwise you can use the SBT launcher located in your example project’s directory.
§Running Play with SBT
SBT provides all the necessary commands to run your application. You can use sbt run to run your app. For more details on running Play from the command line, refer to the new application documentation for more details.
§Congratulations!
You are now ready to work with Play! The next page will show you how to create projects from the command line and some more detail about creating new applications.
Found an error in this documentation? The source code for this page can be found here. After reading the documentation guidelines, please feel free to contribute a pull request. Have questions or advice to share? Go to our community forums to start a conversation with the community.