Using Gradle for a mixed groovy and java project and creating a distribution zip

Yes, I still use Groovy upon occasion. Groovy still is more readable and elegant in a lot of instances even than Java 8.

Ok but let's say i am writing both java and groovy in the project
In order to have this work, you need to configure your Gradle project with the following small changes so that you can make it compile the mixed code.

You need to make all the code compile as Groovy code (even the Java code).
So, add the following lines to your project:

sourceSets.main.java.srcDirs = []
sourceSets.main.groovy.srcDirs += ["src/main/java"]

This makes all your java code compile with the Groovy compiler to prevent dependency issues between the Groovy and Java code.

Now, your code all works but you want to put the zip of it somewhere to use. So, just add these lines:

task zip(dependsOn: jar, type: Zip) {
    from { configurations.runtime.allArtifacts.files } {
        into("${project.name}-${project.version}")
    }
    from { configurations.runtime } {
        into("${project.name}-${project.version}/lib")
    }

}

Now when you run gradle zip you will get a zip with all dependencies inside!