Choose one dependency as precedent over another for an arbitrary list of packages in the IntelliJ Builder

Goal

I'm trying to make my maven project use the IntelliJ builder when I'm editing code because the IDE offers fast rebuild and hot deployment features that could speed up my work. However I'm running into a roadblock due to how my maven project is set up.

Constraints

I have to use maven the way it's being used. The solution must be in IntelliJ

Note that creating an IntelliJ plugin is an option. I realize this may be necessary due to the limitations of IntelliJ build configuration.

The problem

My project depends on 2 libraries, SharedLibA and SharedLibB, which contain package com.shared. SharedLibA is a new library, and sharedLibB is and old legacy one. SharedLibA and SharedLibB contain packages that are not contained in the other, which are needed by my project. The package they both have, com.shared is needed by the project too. However SharedLibB is legacy/old so we always want Tomcat to prioritize the implementation of classes in com.shared from SharedLibA, not the implementations of those classes in SharedLibB. We accomplish this by having a maven goal that extracts classes under package com.shared from SharedLibA to WEB-INF/classes when the WAR is packaged.

When I try to build my project in IntelliJ, it picks up the wrong implementation of classes in com.shared.* and spews out compilation errors despite compilation working perfectly via maven. I'm stuck with this inflexible maven hackjob but I still want to find a way to make IntelliJ understand that I want SharedLibA's com.shared.* classes to be used in compilation not SharedLibB's. I can't remove SharedLibB from consideration because I need the other classes in SharedLibB to compile my project.

Desired Solution

I'm looking for some kind of logic like "when com.shared.* classes are considered, choose SharedLibA" or "when any package conflict happens in classpath resolution, prioritize ShareLibA" because I'm pretty sure SharedLibA should be prioritized in any package conflict.

Thanks

I hope that explains it well enough, thank you in advance to anyone who chimes in here.

IDE builds the classpath and buildpath based on the dependencies which are configured for the module. It also considers their order - the 1st dependency that match given class will be used.

For Maven-based projects the dependencies list and their order IDE takes from the Maven pom.xml file of the module. So you can set the order in pom.xml file.

Another mentioned option is to exclude the library items. But the better solution would be to configure Maven build properly.

You should try to go to your project ".IML" file and there :
you can create or modify a module.

In there you can include or exclude the libs or defining its use priority
you could use this snippet to inspire

<!-- begin snippet: js hide: false console: true babel: false -->

<!-- language: lang-html -->

<module org.jetbrains.idea.maven.project.MavenProjectsManager.isMavenModule="true" type="JAVA_MODULE" version="8">
  <component name="SharedB" LANGUAGE_LEVEL="JDK_1_8">
    <output url="file://$MODULE_DIR$/target/classes" />
    <output-test url="file://$MODULE_DIR$/target/test-classes" />
    <content url="file://$MODULE_DIR$">
      <sourceFolder url="file://$MODULE_DIR$/src/main/java" isTestSource="false" />
...
    <excludeFolder url="file://$MODULE_DIR$/target" />
    </content>
...
    <orderEntry type="inheritedJdk" />
    <orderEntry type="sourceFolder" forTests="false" />
...
  </component>
</module>

<!-- end snippet -->

if you are not confortable with this solution you could use the module settings of Intellij

https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/library.html#excluded_lib_items