I want to create a custom Language, with its own custom Syntax Highlighting.
Notepad++, a Windows-only SciTE/Scintilla based text editor, allowed me to create a custom "Language", and now, in Linux, I want to reproduce the same thing.
I need(?) to use SciTE/Scintilla because (as far as I know) it is the only plain-text editor which can display different size fonts in the same text-file (e.g., default-font= 12pt, comment-font=24pt).
I used the comments font to display a complex script (alphabet) in a larger font.
Please let me know if there is any other plain-text editor which does this.
I assume this is a feature of SciTE/Scintilla (and not of Notepad++).
Some of the magic is possibly (probably?) done in files such as:
/usr/share/scite/.properties
Notepad++ has a GUI interface to set up a new language or syntax, but I could use some direction on exactly how to go about it in SciTE.
Thanks…
Best Answer
I looked at it once, it's quite painful, because all is defined statically in the c++ source code.
You have to define a certain number of rules among the one already existing in scintilla, for things like... well it's quite mangled. You can quickly search for "scintilla lexer" on google, but you to understand that syntax highlighters are very sophisticated to code, just look at notepad++ and all its features: it's almost a code parser, which is found in compilers.
On top of that, a scintilla lexer can be made for any type of language.
Another problem is that coloring the text has to be platform agnostic, and again, I guess it favors windows (duh), and don't forget the font renderer, which can also be another thing.
I'm not sure scintilla has been ported to gnome or kde, has it ?