IntelliJ Community Edition: Javascript syntax highlighting

JavaScript support is supported in Ultimate Edition, but not in Community Edition.

For the basic syntax highlighting you can try the TextMate Bundles Support plug-in. See this document for the setup instructions (it's for PhpStorm, but instructions for IntelliJ IDEA would be the same).


Use Visual Studio Code for Javascript support when using IntelliJ Community Edition. It's free and has all the support you would get for the paid version of IntelliJ Ultimate.


The TextMate Bundles Support plug-in in not enough. You also need specific language bundles.

  1. install and enabled the TextMate bundle support plugin in IntelliJ
  2. Download the specific language bundles and unzip them somewhere where you find them, e.g., TypeScript, Shell Script TextMate Bundle
  3. Open the Settings/Preferences dialog, got to Editor and select TextMate Bundles
  4. Click on the + on the right side and choose the desired bundle from 2. on your hard disk. Then it should appear in the list of recognized bundles.
  5. Extension conflicts might appear: Click on "Show details". If you want to use the new syntax highlighting click on "unregister native file type".

A detailed explanation with screenshots can be found here


I found this question after searching by "how to enable JS syntax highlight into JSP files" in my Intellij Community Edition.

Following the suggestion to use TextMate Bundles, I checked that it's already installed by default, including JSP support (built-in). But it did not work.

So, I fixed it by just removing the "*.jsp" pattern from "File Types > JSP", and after that now my IDE is using TextMate syntax highlight properly.