how to run IntelliJ IDEA with JetBrains Runtime

Question

I'm trying to activate Ligatures a new feather in IntelliJ IDEA 2016.2 by following the instructions in this video but there are missing fonts and when using 64 version I get this hint.

The JRE you are running IntelliJ IDEA with might have functional and performance issues related to ligatures support. To avoid such issues, run IntelliJ IDEA with JetBrains Runtime.

this is the fonts list

how can I make this feather work?

Answer 1

Maybe a bit late to answer this. Recently ran into same issue, googling around came across this post. After while did figure out how to do it properly.

There is no installer but there is tar/gzip file for windows under files tab in bintray.com/jetbrains/intellij-jdk/

• for windows 64 bit https://bintray.com/jetbrains/intellij-jdk/openjdk8-windows-x64#files [ set me up button in the page is very misleading though..]

Once you download and extracted the JetBrains Runtime, add environment IDEA_JDK variable with path of runtime environment. Close the ide and start again, and you are good to go.

• for 64bit environment variable will be like IDEA_JDK_64=c:/intellji-jdk/

hint: IDEA_JDK for 32 bit idea.exe and IDEA_JDK_64 for 64 bit idea64.exe

As for the fira code font , they are in github https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode. Pull the latest to your PC via git or simply download the repo.

• For windows install the ttf fonts in distr folder [ all the fonts are under distr folder ].

Answer 2

To switch the Java runtime used to run IntelliJ IDEA:

• On the Help menu, click Find Action, or press Ctrl+Shift+A.
• Find and select the Switch Boot JDK action.
• Select the desired JDK and click OK.

More details Tuning IntelliJ IDEA