Richer TreeView Experience in VS Code Extension - visual-studio-code

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.

Related

VSCODE Notebooks - Is it possible to show only markdown headers in outline?

I use markdown headers to navigate in notebooks but I also tend to make a lot of (non-header) markdown notes. Both show up in the outline which makes finding the right heading quite difficult as notebooks grow large.
Is there a way to suppress plain markdown cells showing up in the outline?
I have followed the discussion on github and at Creating Table of Contents in VS code Jupyter Notebook
the author of one answer was also not satisfied with the outline feature and created jupyter TOC extension, and at some point, I also ended up using it. This has an option to exclude text from visualization (I believe it is possible to set maximum expansion level), but I still consider the outline more desireable, because it stays visible when I scroll the document, which I consider essential.
The workaround I found is to put, when possible, text in the same cell as the header. This makes it easier to keep the outline clean, and just avoiding to expand too much the outline works decently for me, even if it implies some annoying restrictions on the way you structure text. Other than that, it is possible to play with the collapse/expand feature of the outline and get a sufficient control, even if the possibility of completely exclude the text is still a desireable upgrade.

Real time Code render mode in 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.

Is there a way to change background color of syntax highlight in Visual Studio Code

I was looking for a better code editor for my projects and wanted to give VSCode a try. But I couldn't find where to customize the syntax highlighting settings. What I actually need is to change the background color of embedded languages within a file so that I can identify different parts of the code a lot easier.
I have this PHP file which contains, HTML, CSS and JavaScript and I'd like to set different background colors for all 4 languages within this single file. Is this possible with VSCode? or does anyone know a code editor that supports this? UltraEdit supports this but it has so many other shortcomings.
Not possible #3429 Themes don't support background styling

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.

Multiple cursor markers in Eclipse text editor

I am developing a plug-in for Eclipse. I have to develop a Java text editor which allows several users to write the code at the same time, the same way as in Google Docs. But I came across the following problem: the text editor has to show the cursor position of the other users who are coding in same Java document. In other words, I want to place a marker in the text editor content (see this image that shows what I'm trying to implement).
I've already looked IMarker, but IMarker is placed on the text editor's vertical ruler, which is not what I want. Can I use this class? If not, what other class should I use?
The other idea of mine was to insert a JTable in the text editor, but I couldn't find the way how to do that. Is this a right approach, or I'm wrong?
Stack Overflow Gods, please help me...
Eclipse has two different concepts for managing extra information related to files: markers and annotations. Annotations are related to a single editor instance, and their appearance can be customized with a corresponding extension point; markers are used to store extra information permanently (and additionally an annotation can be set up for that reason).
I think, you need to use annotations, as markers are too heavyweight for a real-time collaboration. For future reference, see the Annotations in the Eclipse Help; and some time ago I have written a blog post that describes an automatic translation (and customization) of markers to annotations.