CodeSpotlight

CodeSpotlight is a plugin for IntelliJ IDEA that turns ordinary code selection into a customizable animated visual focus. Rather than leaving selected code with a flat highlight, the plugin surrounds the selection with glowing borders, moving lights, and smooth visual effects so that the code currently being discussed becomes the obvious center of attention on screen. It is designed for people who show code to an audience — coding YouTubers, tutors, instructors, course creators, livestreamers, and technical presenters — and for anyone who wants selected code to be impossible to miss. Its purpose is straightforward: select code, focus attention, and customize the look, all without leaving the editor or changing a single line of the source file. Presenting code is harder than it looks. A cursor alone is easy to lose on a busy screen, and the default selection highlight in a code editor is subtle by design — it is meant to support editing, not to survive a compressed video, a projector, or a livestream where viewers may be watching on a phone. As a result, viewers of technical tutorials, live coding sessions, screen recordings, and code demonstrations can struggle to follow which lines are being explained at any given moment. CodeSpotlight addresses that visibility gap. It keeps the developer's normal workflow intact while adding a configurable visual focus layer around the current selection, so the audience's eye is guided to the right place. According to the plugin's own overview, the goal is to help selected code remain visually easy to follow during presentations, technical tutorials, screen recordings, live coding, code demonstrations, reviews, and everyday development workflows. At its core, CodeSpotlight visually highlights selected code, including multi-line selections, which matters because real explanations often span a whole method, a loop, or a block rather than a single word. Crucially, the plugin preserves IntelliJ IDEA's normal selection and editing behavior: the text still behaves like ordinary IntelliJ IDEA code, and the plugin simply adds a configurable visual focus layer around the current selection. The animated effects are drawn as an overlay, so there is no need to modify source code, insert markers, or maintain a separate presentation copy of a file. For developers who present from their real project, that means the code they demonstrate is the same code they ship. CodeSpotlight offers multiple animation styles so the effect can match the tone and pace of a session. The free tier includes Traveling Border, Pulse, Breathing Glow, and Static Glow. CodeSpotlight Pro expands this with Travel + Pulse, Energy Sweep, Aurora, and Orbit, alongside everything available in the free tier. Traveling Border sends movement around the edge of the selection, which naturally draws the eye without covering the code itself. Pulse and Breathing Glow create rhythmic brightness changes that keep attention on a region while it is being explained. Static Glow provides a steady, non-moving highlight for situations where motion would be distracting. The additional Pro modes — Energy Sweep, Aurora, and Orbit — give presenters more distinctive looks to choose from when they want a signature style. Appearance controls let developers tune how the focus layer looks. The free tier ships with built-in color presets, and Pro adds custom primary and secondary colors for full control over the palette. Border thickness, glow radius, corner radius, and glow intensity can all be adjusted, so the effect can range from a thin outline to a soft, wide halo that frames the selection without obscuring it. These parameters matter because readability changes with context: a bright glow that works on a large monitor may need to be dialed down for a compressed recording, while a subtle outline may need to be strengthened for a projector. Because every control lives in the IDE settings, presenters can quickly match the effect to their recording setup, their editor theme, and their audience. Animation behavior is configurable as well. Users can choose the animation mode and speed, adjust moving light segments, and set the animation frames per second. Light trail controls add a trailing effect behind moving elements; the free tier covers a standard trail plus trail enablement, while Pro adds advanced trail length and intensity/fade controls. Moving light segments range from one in the free tier to one to four in Pro, which changes the density and feel of the motion — a single traveling light reads as a clean pointer, whereas several segments create a richer, more energetic look. The visual controls in the free tier include speed, glow intensity, border thickness, glow radius, corner radius, and animation FPS, and Pro includes everything from the free tier. To avoid re-tuning settings for every recording, CodeSpotlight supports saved presets: up to two in the free tier and unlimited presets with Pro. Presets make it practical to keep a distinct look for tutorials, another for livestreams, and another for client demos, and to switch between them rather than rebuilding the configuration each time. Two further Pro capabilities round out the package. Focus Mode, refined in version 1.0.1 with a darker selected-code surface and an unchanged surrounding editor, isolates attention on the current selection. Pro also includes the optional CodeSpotlight Dark editor color-scheme integration, so the surrounding editor can match the visual treatment. Configuration lives entirely inside the IDE. The workflow is: open Settings, go to Tools → Animated Selection (CodeSpotlight), enable animated selection, choose colors and animation mode, adjust the available visual parameters, then return to the editor and select code. Changes appear instantly, so there is no restart-and-check loop. The plugin's stated design principle is to stay out of the way — your code remains native IntelliJ IDEA code while the plugin adds a configurable visual focus layer around the current selection, and both appearance and animation settings are available directly inside IntelliJ IDEA. The plugin notes that everything can be customized from IntelliJ IDEA Settings with no code changes required. The plugin is explicitly aimed at situations where code is watched rather than just written. That includes technical presentations where a room needs to follow the active block, tutorials and course content where the explanation should track the highlighted lines, screen recordings where compression can wash out subtle selection highlights, live coding streams where viewers join mid-session, and code demonstrations and reviews where a reviewer wants to point at a specific region while discussing it. It also applies to everyday development workflows, since the same visual focus can make it easier for a developer to keep track of what they have selected in a large file, even when nobody else is watching. CodeSpotlight is compatible with IntelliJ IDEA, Android Studio, and 13 more IntelliJ-based products, and it is distributed through the JetBrains Marketplace. It is built for coding YouTubers, tutors, instructors, course creators, livestreamers, technical presenters, and developers who want to make their code impossible to miss. The plugin follows a free-plus-Pro model: animated selection highlighting, the four base animation modes, built-in color presets, one moving light segment, a standard light trail, core visual controls, up to two saved presets, and an optional CodeSpotlight Dark color-scheme integration are available without a paid plan. Some features require a paid subscription, and the Pro tier unlocks additional animation modes, custom primary and secondary colors, one to four moving light segments, advanced trail length and intensity/fade controls, Focus Mode, unlimited saved presets, and the included editor color scheme. Version 1.0.1 was released on 21 Sep 2026, and the plugin is published by the vendor CodeSpotlight. CodeSpotlight's value proposition is simple: make your selected code the visual focus. By combining animated highlighting, configurable appearance and animation controls, saved presets, and an optional Focus Mode inside IntelliJ IDEA, it makes code easier to follow for anyone watching — without altering the code itself. Select. Focus. Customize. Code.