Coloring/Highlighting Text in sublime - sublimetext

I generally use Sublime as a text editor to keep my notes as I like the feel of sublime.
I was wondering if there is a way I can choose to selectively color/highlight some of my texts (not the whole content).
For the list of to-do things, this coloring can help me to differentiate the processed items in the list and pending items easily. Same for differentiating between important notes and non-important notes, etc.

I suppose you could write your own syntax for it... take a look at other syntaxes.
In your case it would just be regex matching something like this presumably:
- not done
+ done
~ important
* not important
which would be pretty easy to manage.
The good thing about editing the syntaxes is that the results are immediately visible in the file, so you can see if what you did worked.

Related

How to change multiple entries in config files

I notice in VS2013 that if I highlight text with a view to making a change, the same text is highlighted elsewhere in the file. However, I can't seem to find the option to reflect the change in multiple places when I start typing.
Is this feature just for information only or can I actually do multiple replacements by typing the change once?
This is not supported out of the box.
But there is a nice plugin you can use to enable this, called MultiEditing.
H/T to Scott Hanselman :)
Also note that even in standard VS2013, you can edit multiple lines by "box-highlighting".
This is where you create a "box-selection" either by holding down Alt and dragging a box around the text, or by Alt+Shift+ArrowKeys. Then start typing and the same text will appear on multiple lines.
e.g. with the following text:
Some text to demonstrate
Some info to demonstrate
Some more to demonstrate
...if you Alt+drag a box-selection around all 3 occurrences of the word to, and then type which, it will look like this:
Some text which demonstrate
Some info which demonstrate
Some more which demonstrate
This also works with copy/paste - the pasted text gets applied to all lines within the box-selection.
It's pretty hard for me to describe here, so try it yourself!

How do I add features to a syntax definition in Sublime Text without editing it?

For example, I would like to highlight #param, #type, and #return (i.e. epytext declarations) in my Python docstrings. I have figured out how to do this by simply editing Python/Python.tmLanguage; however, I would really like to put this in its own file, for a couple of reasons:
I don't always want to apply this highlighting. It's only for projects that use epydoc as their documentation tool; in other projects, I would want to highlight reStructuredText instead.
When Sublime Text updates, I'd like to have my own syntax as an overlay onto the included features. there are several features of Python that Sublime's author may choose to include in future versions and I don't want to have to manually figure out what I changed each time an update modifies the base Python syntax definition.
I keep my own editor configuration in version control, but I want that to be my own original stuff; I don't want to be burdened with having to carry copies (possibly proprietary? I don't know, it doesn't seem to have an independent license) of syntax definitions that come with Sublime.
Is there a way to put highlighting rules into a separate file, perhaps to only be applied to a particular scope?
Sounds to me like you want to create your own syntax file, inherit from the Python syntax file (source.python), and make your changes and customizations there. Sublime Text 2 uses the .tmLanguage format for syntax files, which is a bit complex, but fortunately most of the work has already been done for you, just by inheriting from source.python.
What you want to do is set up a regex pattern to match the substrings that you want to highlight, and give that pattern a name; something like punctuation.definition.comment.epydoc, to follow the convention set in Java/JavaDoc.tmLanguage. Then, check your color scheme file (ending in .tmTheme) and make sure there are settings for the scope that you've chosen -- or for one of its parents, since ST2 should use proper scoping rules for this sort of thing.
To use the syntax file you've created, stick it in Packages/User (so that ST2 doesn't overwrite it on upgrades), open a Python file in the editor, and then select your new syntax from the dropdown list in the bottom right corner of the window. If you've set up everything correctly, the epydoc strings should change to be whatever color you've set in your color scheme.
Good luck! And post a link somewhere when you've got a syntax file that works, so others can see and use it, as well!

Textmate Hide/Show Comments

Is there any way with TextMate to hide comments when editing code? Sometimes I want to see my code with the full comments and other times just want to see the code itself with all comments hidden. I was hoping there would be a way to toggle the display of comments, but haven't been able to find anything about this.
It is something you will need to edit on a language by language basis, but it is very doable. Inside of Bundles -> Bundle Editor -> Edit Languages you will find the language definition that TextMate uses to highlight that particular syntax. Inside of the syntax definition you will find foldingStartMarker and foldingStopMarker.
You can add comment syntax to those to allow the folding off comments themselves. It might be pretty tricky for single line comments, but multiline comments, that have both a clear and unique start and stop syntax, should work fine.
For PHP, for example, we are going to want to add \/\* to the start syntax, and \*\/ to the end syntax. You will need to reload the bundle for these changes to take effect (or restart TM).

Reformatting code in text mate to established code conventions - Visual studio's ctrl K+D equivalent on Text Mate

Can anyone tell me if there's a quick way to format your code in Text Mate, similar to pressing ctrl K+D in Visual studio?
Thanks!
Edit by Damien_The_Unbeliever:
For those not familiar with Ctrl K+D, it doesn't just indent code - it reformats it using the generally established formatting conventions in the editor - it may replace spaces with tabs or vice-versa for the indentation, ensure code is consistently indented, move braces to separate lines, etc.
TextMate reindenting and reformatting varies a little depending on the language you're using.
You can generally use the Text menu, that depending wether you have an active selection or not it will show you different commands under it. For example, if you have selected a section of code, there will be a Indent Selection menu item. If you have no active selection, it will be Indent Line.
To have this working properly, be sure to select the current language, if it isn't assigned yet (like on unsaved documents). If you're working with HTML, it will simply indent the lines depending on what's above it. It will keep line breaks intact.
If you need something to break out tags on new lines and properly format the document, you should use the Tidy command that is found in the Bundles menu, under HTML (or simply by using the shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+H. If you have a selection active at the moment that you use it, it will simply reindent that section. If instead you have no selection, it will properly reformat the whole document, including checking for tag validity and other errors.
The Bundles for other language have similar commands, like XML (still Tidy) and Javascript (that has a Reformat Document command).
As an ending note, I simply suggest to look into the Bundles menu; there are many little gems in it. ;)
Did you look in the menu bar? Under Text you have a couple of Reformat… entries that may fit your needs.
Beside these native features, some bundles — like the JavaScript one — have custom Reformat… commands : click on the little cog button at the bottom and explore your current language's bundle's content.

Windows text editor that shows/hides lines based on RegEx or Grep syntax?

One of my application components produces some extremely hairy log files. They require a lot of poking and prodding before they produce useful information. I'm on the hunt for a text editor for windows that will let me enter text in either RegEx or Grep-style syntax, and automatically show/hide the relevant lines.
Does anyone know of a text editor that has this feature?
Thanks!
IVR Avenger
I know it's answered already, but http://glogg.bonnefon.org/ is the perfect answer for this. Couldn't live w/o it.
I would recommend Notepad++ as far as a good all-around Windows text editor is concerned - it is very extensible and includes just about every power feature you need to wade through data logs. If your log files are in a well-defined format, you can even use the built-in language editor to define a custom visual scheme for your logs - easier on the eyes.
-matt
GVim with for example, :g command. There are also plugins that allow entering search criteria, and they show relevant lines, and fold everything else.
Emacs, of course (occur), but I think pretty much every editor will do this.
Another option is SlickEdit using it's "Selective Display..." option
Although it wont show/hide based on a regex, Textpad will allow you to search and produce a hyperlinked result file with the lines that will allow you to click into the actual log. Consider the benefit: You can keep the filtered results up on your left monitor, and you can click into the full files and show them on your right monitor to see the context.
SPFLite is free and does just what you want. At least the IBM SPF and ISFP (used on IBM mainframes as part of the MVS operating system) that it emulates is just what you want.
From what I have tried, SPFLite will probably do the job. It can X (exclude) all lines from view, or eXclude lines with a given character or phrase (optionally starting in a certain column) from view. Or after eXcluding all lines, you can display, by Finding, characters or strings (optionally starting in a certain column). I think it also has a macro capability. The original does, and I think this Lite does as well. How robust I do not know. The original could create interactive screens and programs using the MVS TSO Command Language.
I found SPFLite at http://www.spflite.com/
I found that this interface is not so easy to use, but one gets used to about anything if necessary.

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