# \[Motoko\] Syntax Highlighting/Recommendations on IDE?

**URL:** <https://forum.dfinity.org/t/motoko-syntax-highlighting-recommendations-on-ide/184>\
**Category:** Language Support\
**Created:** [November 16, 2019, 6:17pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/motoko-syntax-highlighting-recommendations-on-ide/184 "2019-11-16T18:17:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![magpie\_lover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@magpie\_lover](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/magpie_lover)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2019, 6:17pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/motoko-syntax-highlighting-recommendations-on-ide/184/1 "2019-11-16T18:17:05Z")

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Using Atom right now, but the syntax highlighting part is a problem as we don’t have a “language-motoko” package yet. After following [this link](https://discuss.atom.io/t/how-do-i-make-atom-recognize-a-file-with-extension-x-as-language-y/26539), I was able to make Atom recognise `.mo` files as `.js` files

_i.e_ added the following to the `config.cson`

```
"source.js": [
        "mo"
      ]

```

Not great, but better than no highlighting at all.  
Wondering if there are better solutions than this? What IDE(s) are you guys using?

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**Author:** ![cryptoschindler](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/forum.dfinity.org/cryptoschindler/32/26_2.png) [@cryptoschindler](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/cryptoschindler)\
**Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 9:27pm UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/motoko-syntax-highlighting-recommendations-on-ide/184/2 "2020-01-28T21:27:29Z")

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you could use this with vscode for syntax highlighting!

> [@Motoko grammar/parser code](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/motoko-grammar-parser-code/243/9):
>
> i can now install the motoko language extension for vscode, seems to work open_mouth[https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=BlockInsight.dfinity](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=BlockInsight.dfinity) although it looks like this is only a color theme for highlighting

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**Author:** ![cryptoschindler](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex023/user_avatar/forum.dfinity.org/cryptoschindler/32/26_2.png) [@cryptoschindler](https://forum.dfinity.org/u/cryptoschindler)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2020, 1:58am UTC](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/motoko-syntax-highlighting-recommendations-on-ide/184/3 "2020-03-03T01:58:49Z")

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And this for linting:

> [@Motoko extension for VSCode!](https://forum.dfinity.org/t/language-client-extension-for-vscode/502):
>
> I hacked [this little extension](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=motoko-lsp-client.motoko-lsp-client) together to get code completion and compiler warnings with the dfx \_language-service command. This has been only tested on 0.5.2 and assumes your dfx binary lives in /usr/local/bin/dfx (this should be easy to fix). If you need to change the directory, use which dfx to get the correct path open ~/.vscode/extensions/motoko-lsp-client.motoko-lsp-client-{the-current-version-of-the-extension}/client/out/extension.js modify the path in line 12 to the output of which…