No plugin.xml found

I'm trying to create a new plugin following the procedures on this page:

https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/2016.1/creating-a-project-for-plugin-development.html

When I try to create a new action, I get the error: "Cannot create action No plugin.xml file found"

I found a few other tutorials about plugins. One mentioned creating META-INF/plugin.xml with certain contents, which I did, but I still get the error.