Combining syntax highlighting in notepad++

PSPad allows you to define "User highlighters". Although not quite as flexible as a full specification, you can at least define all the keywords (up to 3 categories) and reserved words you want highlighted. For LESS, you can get/edit a list of keywords from the existing CSS highlighter in the [Keywords] section from "CSS.DEF" in the "Context" directory inside the PSPad program folder -- you may also expand this list if you simply want support for the CSS3 keywords in the regular CSS highlighter.

You should then assign this user highlighter to one of the "<not assigned>" spots in the Highlighter Settings, following which you can select colours for the reserved words and 3 keyword categories.

With these user highlighters, nested brackets work just fine.

Note: since these files are stored in subfolders of the PSPad program folder, usually in C:\Program Files, Windows Vista and Windows 7 won't let you edit them unless you run PSPad as Administrator. Be sure to do this when you change any settings.

So, in summary:

• Expand C:\Program Files\PSPad\Context\CSS.DEF for CSS3 properties
• Create a user highlighter (with keywords from the above file) to be able to have syntax highlighting for LESS

I use a program called phpDesigner that highlights PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript all separately in the same document. It does code completion for each part, even if you do style="fon...".

I had to move to it since I couldn't find any other program that was so good when working with PHP (and all the other languages it uses at the same time), including Notepad++. The one thing I wish it did was syntax highlight SQL strings within PHP (it does fine with just SQL), but maybe in a future version.