Why does IntelliJ have an extra way to update the Kotlin plugin?

The Kotlin plug-in gets not updated automatically like the other plugins. Why do we need this extra way through “Tools > Kotlin > Configure Kotlin Plugin Updates”?

kotlin-intellij

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agreed : I would prefer automatic update like any other plugin…

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The separate plugin update mechanism exists because we do not want to show Kotlin plugin update notifications to IntelliJ IDEA users who do not use Kotlin (Kotlin is the only plugin which is bundled with IntelliJ IDEA but updated separately from the IntelliJ IDEA release cycle). We’re considering possibilities for better integration of Kotlin into the standard plugin update mechanism.

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Maybe there could be a little checkbox in the plugin manager where you can decide whether you want to be notified about updates or not (maybe disabled by default). Or, even better, the IDE could register whether the user is programming Kotlin with it and enable plugin updates in the plugin manager by default.

It happens regularly that the update of the Kotlin plugin fails with this message:

kotlin-update

The linked log file doesn’t contain a message about the update.

Is this related to the special treatment of the Kotlin plugin?

Yes, this is roughly what we’re considering.

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Any info on progress on this one?