Real time Code render mode in Visual Studio Code - visual-studio-code

For a half year now, I carry an innovative idea for a modern way of code editing. I just realized what Visual Studio Code extensions are already capable of and made me wonder.
The idea is that a real time code render mode for code editors where code is visualized like rendered documentation (for example Doxygen). Non-commented lines of code are displayed like collapsable codeblocks and documentation comments are displayed as the surrounding markdown/HTML/LaTeX document.
This rendered view still can be edited and navigated in same way as the classic text view so that new graphical elements appear after typing them as text into a comment. Therefore, rich interactive documentation reading (like hiding/showing parts, jumping across locations with hyperlinks) and code editing would be combined into one activity without time needed for switching between both or mapping Documentation with actual code locations. Different from the original literate programming idea, the file's physical content is unchanged and doesn't complicate the process or source code reading.
It's conceptually how Moodle text editors work (HTML code view and render view) or like using a graphical word processor to visualize source code instead of a single monospace text. Of course, the cursor would move along lines in their visually presented order and not in their file's actual order.
Do you know, if such a real time render mode is possible in VSCode?
Did someone had such an idea and made an extension?
btw:
This "render mode" idea is actually quite generic and could be used as general customizable GUI technology that would allow GUI elements to be navigated, edited via an underlying text representation.

Related

Richer TreeView Experience in VS Code Extension

I am trying to determine if its possible to provide a "richer" experience when using TreeViews in a VS Code extension. The default explorer view has the ability to do things provide custom text coloring for items (such as red when a file has an error or yellow if its been changed). However, the only highlight I can seem to find in TreeItems is only able to highlight text in an item without control over color but only select when the highlight starts/stops.
I would really like to take advantage of the same tree experience provided by the VS Codes extensions view but it does not seem to be restricted by the same API as other extensions (makes sense).
Any recommendations? I am considering just doing a webview that holds my own "TreeView" but wanted to see if there are other options before going down that rabbit hole.

Drawing arrows and symbols in Visual Studio Code

I am writing a small tools for VS Code and the tool will need to draw arrows between symbols in the code.
Something along these lines.
Please forgive my skills with Paint.
What it is the best way to achieve this effect in VS Code?
What you want is not possible. The editor output in vscode is a list of DOM nodes (divs for the lines, spans for the syntactic elements). You cannot draw lines between DOM nodes.
If you had full control over the editor you could add an overlay over the entire text to draw the lines, but then you have to take care not to disturb the normal behavior of the editor and, after all, you don't have that kind of control.
A webview is not a good approach, as it would not only require to duplicate the work the normal editor does, it's also isolated and has no direct access to the main application, which means actions, language server support etc. don't work
yes sure use this Rainbow Brackets
its draw an arrow between the start and the end .
enter image description here

vscode: Is it possible to show an image inside a text buffer?

e.g. I write a markdown document and include a line like [myimage](/mypath.jpg) to see the image in a big size above or below this line.
When I'm writing markdown I regularly have to look at an embedded file. At the moment I have to use a split layout and switch my attention between the text buffer and the preview. That's slowing me down and distracting.
What I mean is a full size preview that can fill the whole width of the buffer and is permanently shown. This is offered by the emacs markdown-mode (see this image with a command named "markdown-toggle-inline-images".). This is also available in sublime text e.g. via an add-on named sublime_zk. This is possible in atom with add-ons like preview-inline or inline markdown images.
This would allow to use VSCode like a WYSIWYG md-editor like typora but with all the benefits of using your daily edtior. This should also be interesting for programmers - at least on hackernews typora is regularly praised as the best markdown editor (see e.g. here)
I didn't see an addon for this. Something related was discussed about two years ago in issue 7689 - but this only concerns a mini preview in the gutter or if you move the mouse over a link. For this there is already the add-on Image preview.
This is not possible as of VS Code 1.29. The VS Code api does not provide a way to insert custom elements like images into the editor.
The two closest existing APIs:
The code lens api: CodeLensProvider. These allow you to insert additional clickable commands into an editor (such as displaying a reference count above a function) but these can only be text buttons
The hover api: HoverProvider. Hovers can contain images since they display markdown content. However they are only displayed when the user hovers over them

How to draw on the background in a vscode extension?

Is it possible to make an extension that draw lines on the background? You can decorate a lot of thing but I can't find a way to draw colored lines.
I would like to see the flow of my data (inspired by visual programming).
Something like that (but the like drawn under the text) :
Keep in mind vscode is an add-on to Electron, which is a webbrowser in a desktop raiment. So what you see are webpages and hence everything what's possible on a webpage (with a node.js basement) is also possible in vscode - at least in theory. I say "in theory" because after all vscode is a text editor and limits interaction in a way that supports this goal. So, what you can is either some drawing/graphics or add extensions that work in normal editor pages. You certainly don't want to write your own text editor interface within vscode.

What is the best way to insert source code examples into a Microsoft Word document?

I have to write some documents that will include source code examples. Some of the examples will be written from the IDE, and others would be written in place. My examples are primarily in Java.
As someone who is used to LaTeX, doing this in Word is extremely painful. However, I am bound to Word for this. The only options I have seen are:
Write or copy into the document,
then use a fixed type font, arrange
formatting and hope that Word didn't
uppercase stuff for you. Needless to
say, this looks like crap.
Copy and paste screenshots of source
code from the IDE. At least I keep
colors. However, if I change my font
size, I'm screwed. I'm also screwed
across page boundaries. And let's
admit it, Word is not great at
managing multiple images on a
document.
Write HTML (not really an option
here)
Is there some better (and ideally portable) way to do this? Is there at least some sort of verbatim style similar to the LaTeX environment? Is there at least some pretty printer that I could copy-and-paste as RTF?
I absolutely hate and despise working for free for Microsoft, given how after all those billions of dollars they STILL do not to have proper guides about stuff like this with screenshots on their damn website.
Anyways, here is a quick guide in Word 2010, using Notepad++ for syntax coloring, and a TextBox which can be captioned:
Choose Insert / Text Box / Simple Text Box
A default text box is inserted
Switch to NPP, choose the language for syntax coloring of your code, go to Plugins / NPPExport / Copy RTF to clipboard
Switch back to word, and paste into the text box - it may be too small ...
... so you may have to change its size
Having selected the text box, right-click on it, then choose Insert Caption ...
In the Caption menu, if you don't have one already, click New Label, and set the new label to "Code", click OK ...
... then in the Caption dialog, switch the label to Code, and hit OK
Finally, type your caption in the newly created caption box
I recently came across this post and found some useful hints. However, I ended up using an entirely different approach which suited my needs. I am sharing the approach and my reasoning of why I chose this approach. The post is longer than I would have liked, but I believe screenshots are always helpful. Hopefully, the answer would be useful to someone.
My requirements were the following:
Add code snippets to a word document, with syntax highlighting for easier visibility and differentiation of code and other text.
Code snippet shall be inline with other text.
Code snippet shall break across pages smoothly without any extra effort.
Code snippet shall have a nice border.
Code snippet shall have spell-check disabled.
My Approach is as listed below:
Use external tool to achieve syntax highlighting requirement 1 above.
One could use notepad plus plus as described above. However, I use the tool present here - https://syntax-highlighter.k26.ch/. This gives me the option to use line number, as well as very nice syntax highlighting (Please use Google Chrome for this step, because syntax highlight is not copied when using Mozilla Firefox, as also pointed out by couple of user comments). Steps to achieve syntax highlighting are listed below:
Open the website provided above in chrome and Copy the code snippet in the text area. I will be using a sample XML to demonstrate this (XML sample from here - http://www.service-architecture.com/articles/object-oriented-databases/xml_file_for_complex_data.html).
Select the language from drop down menu.
Click "Show Highlighted" button. It will open a new tab, with syntax-highlighted code snippet, in this case the XML sample we chose. See image below for example.
To Turn off the line numbers, inspect the page in chrome. Then, under styles, deselect the "margin" property in ".dp-highlighter ol", as shown in the image below. If you want to keep the line numbers, go to next step.
Select the syntax-highlighted code and click copy. Now your code is ready to be pasted into Microsoft word.
Thanks to this blog for providing this information - http://idratherbewriting.com/2013/04/04/adding-syntax-highlighting-to-code-examples-online-and-in-microsoft-word/.
2. To achieve requirements 2, 3 and 4 above, use table in Microsoft word, to insert the code snippet. Steps are listed below:
Insert a table with single column.
Paste the copied text from step 1. in the table column. I have kept the line numbers to show how well this works with Microsoft word.
Apply border, as you like. I have used size 1pt. Resulting Microsoft word snippet will appear as shown in screenshot below. Note how nicely it breaks across the page - NO extra effort needed to manage this, which you would face if inserting "OpenDocument Text" object or if using "Simple TextBox".
To achieve requirement 5, follow the steps below:
Select the entire table or the text.
Go to Review tab. Under Language, choose "Proofing Language". A new pop-up will be presented.
Select "Do not check spelling or grammar". Then, click OK.
Resulting text has spell-check disabled. Final result is shown in the image below and meets all the requirements.
Please provide if you have any feedback or improvements or run into any issues with the approach.
You need to define a style in your Word document and use that for source code. I usually have a style called "Code" which has a monospaced font in a small point size, fixed size tabs, single line spacing, no before/after paragraph spacing, etc. You only need to define this style once and then reuse it. You paste in your source code and apply the "Code" style to it.
Note that some editors (e.g. Xcode on the Mac) add RTF as well as text to the clipboard when copying/pasting between applications - Word recognises RTF and helpfully retains the formatting, syntax colouring, etc.
Source code in Xcode:
Copied and pasted to Word:
(Note: it's a good idea to disable spell-checking in your "Code" style in Word.)
It kind of depends on the IDE. Both Visual Studio and Eclipse, for example, will allow you to copy as RTF and paste into Word, keeping all your formatting.
Notepad++ has a plugin called "NppExport" (comes pre-installed) that allows you to copy to RTF, though I don't care much for Notepad++'s syntax highlighting (it'd definitely be passable though). What it does do is support dozens of languages, whereas the aforementioned IDEs are limited to a handful each (without other plug-ins).
Use this - http://hilite.me/
hilite.me converts your code snippets into pretty-printed HTML format, easily embeddable into blog posts, emails and websites.
How:
Just copy the source code to the left pane, select the language and the color scheme, and click "Highlight!". The HTML from the right pane can now be pasted to your blog or email, no external CSS or Javascript files are required.
For Microsoft Word document: Copy the the content from the Preview section and paste to your Microsoft Word document.
3 sections : Source Code , HTML and Preview
These answers look outdated and quite tedious compared to the web add-in solution; which is available for products since Office 2013.
I'm using Easy Code Formatter, which allows you to codify the text in-place. It also gives you line-numbering options, highlighting, different styles and the styles are open sourced here: https://github.com/armhil/easy-code-formatter-styles so you could extend the styling yourself. To install - open Microsoft Word, go to Insert Tab / click "Get Add-ins" and search for "Easy Code Formatter"
This is related to this answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2653406/931265
Creating an object solved all of my problems.
Insert > Object > Opendocument Text
This will open a document window, paste your text, format it how you want, and close it.
The result is a figure. Right click the object, and select 'add a caption'.
You can now make cross references, create a table of figures.
If you are still looking for an simple way to add code snippets.
you can easily go to [Insert] > [Object] > [Opendocument Text] > paste your code > Save and Close.
You could also put this into a macro and add it to your easy access bar.
notes:
This will only take up to one page of code.
Your Code will not be autocorrected.
You can only interact with it by double-clicking it.
On a Mac I find this solution with vim to be wonderful:
https://github.com/zerowidth/vim-copy-as-rtf
There is an easy way if you want simple code formatting.
Open word> Insert tab> click on "Get Add-ins"
search for "Content mixer"
3.click on "Add"
Then content mixer add will open automatically and you can copy paste your code in there and click on "Insert" to insert it in word doc.
You can use Open Xml Sdk for this. If you have the code in html with color and formatting. You can use altchunks to add it to the word documents.
Refer this post Add HTML String to OpenXML (*.docx) Document
Hope this helps!
This is what i did.
End results :
https://stackoverflow.com/a/25092977/1161594
You can using Plugin Syntax Highlight in Ms.Word https://store.office.com/syntax-highlighter-WA104315019.aspx?assetid=WA104315019 . i follow that step and it's work
In Word, it is possible to paste code that uses color to differentiate comments from code using "Paste Keep Source Formatting." However, if you use the pasted code to create a new style, Word automatically strips the color coded text and changes them to be black (or whatever the auto default color is). Since applying a style is the best way to ensure compliance with document format requirements, Word is not very useful for documenting software programs. Unfortunately, I don't recall Open Office being any better.
The best work-around is to use the default simple text box.
I have tried all your methods, but they didn't work for me, in fact I have created an easier method using MS Word Tables.
Pros:
More beautiful
Easier to manage & more consistent
Are less prone to problems
No need for external plugins or MS Word micro coding.
Easier to handle by simple users (such as myself).
Cons:
It will not maintain code colouring although someone could improve my trick.
Steps:
Insert a 3x3 table, in my case I always make the total width of the table equals the free page's width (3 rows minimum to test the tables style).
Use invisible borders ("No Borders" option), and activate "View Gridlines" option. it should have this aspect.
Be ware that those lines are for you to see the table's grid, and the will not be printed.
Make the adjustments to cells' spacing and columns' width to get the aspect you like. (You will have to get in "Table Properties" for fine tuning).
Create a "Paragraph Style" with the name of "Code" just for your code snippets (check https://stackoverflow.com/a/25092977/8533804 to get the idea, you don't have to follow all of it)
Create another "Paragraph Style" with the name of "Code_numberline" that will be based upon the previous created style.
In the newly created "Code_numberline" add the numbering style that you like (this will automate line numbering).
Apply "Code_numberline" to the first column, and "Code" to the 3 column.
Add a fill in the middle column.
Save that table style and enjoy!
So I've found the majority of answers on this question to either be only semi-functional or broken entirely (eg the website used is down). This solution is entirely self-contained in Word, works across multiple pages, and keeps your syntax highlighting.
Here's the steps:
Temporarily set your IDE's theme to a light one, so that the text will fit in with the rest of your document.
Copy the required code (HTML colourising info will be copied with it).
In Word, hit Ctrl+Alt+V and choose HTML Format to paste the coloured text.
Select all your text and then expand the styles gallery on the home tab of the ribbon.
Choose "Create a style". Use a name such as "Code"
Right click your new style in the gallery and choose "Modify".
Under the formatting section, change the font to Consolas or your choice of monospace font. Also set the line spacing to Condensed (this option is next to the text alignment options).
Under the format button in the bottom left, choose "Language", then enable the "Don't check spelling or grammar" option.
If you want this style to be available in future documents, change to the "New documents based on this template" radio button.
Optional: for line numbers...
Back in the Modify Style dialogue, choose the format button again and choose "Numbering".
Choose the "Define new number format" option.
Remove the dot after the number '1' in the number format box.
Choose "Right" as the number alignment.
Hit ok, then select your new number alignment option. Finally, hit ok on the Modify Style dialog.
Finally, select your code, and set it to be the Code style, which should apply all the required formatting.