I am creating an Eclipse plug-in for it to support a new language. The problem I have is with the content type/file association and its respective editor.
The language has no base in Java or XML and let's say its extension is '.xyz'
From what I understood of research online, I would need to create a new Content Type with file extension '.xyz'. But all the information I have found online has related to either associating a new extension with java (for java syntax highlighting) or creating a new type of file which can be a variant of XML, hence having a lot of details about the describer.
Basically, I am confused about the content describer, am I also to create a new describer for a new language? And what base-type would I give for a language not related to XML or JAVA at all?
Also, since I will be adding my own syntax highlighting, would I need to create my own editor or can I just open such a file in the pre-set editorArea (editors).
The package I am looking at for content types is org.eclipse.core.contenttype.contentTypes.
I realised that I never really picked an answer for this question and eventually I found some useful information on it, so I thought I would share it.
This is the information I understood and used; I apologize if there are any errors or I have misunderstood, and I am open to any corrections.
It was actually a lot simpler than I expected.
To create a new file extension, you just need to extend
org.eclipse.core.contenttype.contentTypes
If you are using the PDE, then you can just right click on the extension (once it is added in the extensions tab) and choose New... -> content-type
Here is the xml code for it,
<extension
id="com.newLanguage.XYZ.contentType"
point="org.eclipse.core.contenttype.contentTypes">
<content-type
file-extensions="xyz,xyzz"
id="com.newLanguage.XYZ.contenttypeMod"
name="XYZ File"
priority="normal">
</content-type>
</extension>
Here you can set the properties of this content-type by defining a unique id, a human-readable name and the extension. You can also give multiple extensions for this content type. For example, my XYZ language can have 2 types of extension '.xyz, and '.xyzz'.
The content describer comes in when I have one generic file-extension: '.xy' but the content or format of the file may differentiate and so I need a describer for the editor to be able to go through the content of the file and recognize the difference. This is handy for syntax highlighting where I need to know the differences.
Since I am not very good at explaining this, this link was extremely useful to me.
But all in all, this tutorial is what set me on my pace and has actually taken me far in understanding how to implement an IDE plug-in for Eclipse. I think it is a very ideal place to start, especially for someone new.
Another place that kept my work going is the Eclipse FAQs but I would specifically like to point out to section 3.5 Implementing Support for Your Own Language which has many tutorial links.
Note: this (new language support, custom syntax highlighting, ...) is the kind of feature provided with XText.
Xtext - Language Development Framework
With Xtext you can easily create your own programming languages and domain-specific languages (DSLs).
The framework supports the development of language infrastructures including compilers and interpreters as well as full blown Eclipse-based IDE integration.
Since the sources are available, you might have a lots of clues to illustrate the usage of the packages you are currently looking.
Related
Is there any way (by means of plugins or settings) to create (by that I mean modifying, adding & deleting) custom tags in notepad++?
By tags I mean, to jump to the definition of an instance used anywhere in project (some kind of like 'goto definition' function like we have in other popular languages like C, C++, C#).
I searched for this topic but could not find satisfactory result.
My requirement:
I have created a custom language in Notepad++ (by adding keywords, coloring patterns and other rules). Now I need the way to add custom tags for this language. How can I achieve this?
With the help of tags I should be able to navigate to definition (just like goto definition in other popular languages) in the particular project (all files in project or at least opened files).
Now I need the way to add custom tags for this language. How can I achieve this?
If you're using Exuberant Ctags you can configure a new language definition using just a handful of regular expressions.
For example this link shows how to configure ctags for the Clipper language using this regexp approach:
I have just had to deal with essentially the same issue. I am using Notepad++ with a legacy codebase written in a custom markup language. Each file can contain cross references to definitions in other files, so a way of jumping to the definition would be very useful.
It has not been easy to find a solution that meets all four requirements: a goto definiton feature that works across multiple files and for a custom language in Notepad++. I found this question while searching for a solution; the answer jussij provided is good but it does not really provide a complete solution.
I ended up using the SourceCookifier plugin with a custom language definition. There is not a huge amount of guidance online about how to use it, but once installed you can use it to manually create a language definition using regex rules.
SourceCookifier will work for your language if you can configure the following:
A set of file extensions used by the language
A set of tag types (i.e. a function, class, variable)
A set of POSIX Basic Regular Expressions for locating each tag type, see this post
Once a language has been defined, you can highlight any instance of a found tag and use the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Enter to jump to the definition of that tag. This can work across a whole codebase of files if you provide it with a list of files to inspect, it calls this a 'session'. All you need to do is drag and drop your codebase folder into the SourceCookifier sidebar window. The codebase I was working with is very large, so I am only using basic functionality, see this post for a good explination of that. The goto definition shortcut can also be added to a right-click context menu, see this post.
I am trying to create a new editor plugin for Eclipse that I can distribute to others to help edit input files for a scientific computing program.
Features I would like in the program include:
Syntax Highlighting
Error Parsing
Content Assist
In general these files contain a set of related objects of the format:
ObjectType,
Field 1, !- Comment describing Field 1
Field 2, !- Comment describing Field 2
...
Field N; !- Comment describing Field N
! more
! comments
Where fields can be strings, numeric values or references to other objects depending on the object type.
Error parsing would check to make sure that each field is of the correct type, that referenced objects exist, and that each object ends in a semi-colon, etc. Content assist would provide a list of valid references for a field, provide defaults where available, etc.
Background
So far I've done a little bit of exploring in Xtext, and it seems to be able to handle most of what I'd like to do and much more, but I'm wondering if the Xtext plugin for our input file syntax would be distributed and used by other users.
I am looking for something that will be easy for users to install and use who are not already familiar with Eclipse and/or programming. Maybe there is an even better solution than Eclipse, but I would like it to be cross-platform and free (in both senses).
Question 1:
Do plugins created with Xtext require Xtext to generate the language artifacts on every machine that wants to use my editor and its features?
Question 2:
If so, what alternatives are there to create an editor with these features?
Regarding Question 1:
Do plugins created with Xtext require Xtext to generate the language artifacts on every machine that wants to use my editor and its features?
Nooooo. Simply put: You as a "toolsmith" forge the tool "Eclipse Editor Plugin". You deliver your tool to the users of the tool. You do NOT deliver the steps to reproduce the tool to the users.
Back to technical terms: You write the grammar, generates the Xtext artefacts, flesh out a few hooks and then you export the UI project as an Eclipse Plugin and/or as a "deployable feature". This will generate a few files (<10) which other users can install using the standard SW installation procedures of Eclipse.
Regarding Question 2:
If so, what alternatives are there to create an editor with these features?
Obsolete.
I'm learning to use a new hosted e-commerce system at work which uses a proprietary markup/scripting language for its page templates. They are similar to JSP pages (although the server tags don't have a prefix, i.e. there is no "xsp:") and use ${expressions} similar to Expression Language. We are transitioning from a .Net system, so all of my fellow devs are very used to having thorough IntelliSense available in our editors.
So, my question is whether it is possible to make these custom tags available in content assist, and whether it is worth the hassle if there is any. (I'm aware the latter is subjective - I'm a reasonable guy and open to opinions.)
FYI, I'm more concerned with auto-completion of tags, but expressions would be great as well depending on how much work is involved. We are using eclipse for Java EE, Juno (core IDE v4.2.1) with WTP... Sorry I'm not really sure how or what to share as far as versions and components go! Let me know if any additional info would help.
Thanks in advance.
A decidedly non-hassle-free answer would be to create an Eclipse plug-in to support your proprietary template language. One place to start might be Veloeclipse, a HTML/XML/JSP/Velocity Editor for Eclipse, which claims to have the following features which you may find interesting:
Smart indentation of velocity directives (on pressing return or when using tabs)
Code folding
Code Formatting
Smart indentation of html tags (on pressing return or when using tabs)
Syntax highlighting for both html and velocity
Autocompletion and Content assist for tags, directives and references (Ctrl + space in html attribute values or when opening or closing tags)
Sources here: http://code.google.com/p/veloeclipse/source/checkout
At work we are using a proprietary language and to program we are using Notepad++ with a simple code highlight. That is really annoying so, what I want to do is to invest some time to setup a text editor or an existing IDE to support my language.
I've googled a lot and there are so many options and before starting to work I wanna ask to you what is the best choice.
What I want to do is to have, like an IDE, a syntax highlight, a window with the function list tree, with the local function variables inside the same subtree, maybe text autocomplete (if I type "pro" I would like to see the suggestion "procedure" and if I press enter it will write for me something like
procedure "name" {
--code--
}
with the cursor on "name" ready to change it.
etc etc...
Can you suggest me the right path to follow?
Is it to keep using Notepad++? With sourcecookifier? functionlist?
Or I have to change to another text editor?
Or there is some famous IDE like Eclipse, NetBeans etc that allow to easily add my own language?
PS. my language is pretty simple, I don't have complex structures, is Pascal-like. Something like that:
variable int xyz
PROCEDURE asd
BEGIN
END PROCEDURE asd
I would recommend you to stay with Notepad++ and extend it with some plugins and configuration. This would be fairly quick and easy to set up and still give a big win, even though you might not be able to get all the nice features of something like Eclipse. But since you already know the Notepad++ it wouldn't require learning an entirely new tool.
Some plugins that I have found useful
Function List
Light Explorer
XBrackets Lite
There are probably a lot more that can be useful to you.
Notepad++ also got some built in auto-completion functionality that can be enabled in the settings.
Have you evaluated Eclipse XTEXT ?
What is Xtext?
Xtext is a framework for development of programming languages and domain specific languages.
The only IDE I have used for the last few years is Eclipse. There are lots of other IDEs available, also notable and popular is Netbeans. There are many others. It's important to note that all IDEs have their fans, but I can only speak to Eclipse.
Eclipse is a platform, which means it is an application on which you can build other applications. Eclipse provides a framework which you can customize and extend to produce a working application. It takes care of the user interface, preferences storage, modularisation using OSGi, and lots of other things.
Eclipse has facilities to support what you're looking for:
Syntax highlighting in the editor.
The Outline View provides function and variable listing in a tree
Autocompletion and Suggestions (activated by hitting ctrl-space)
Code Templates to fill out files and procedures etc.
The disadvantage is that customising and extending Eclipse to do what you want isn't trivial. Having written a language debugger for Eclipse, I can tell you that leveraging Eclipse's platform helped enormously, but there's a learning curve. You'd essentially have to be coming up with a new set of plugins to provide your highlighting, outlining, autocomplete suggestions and templates (I'm not sure if template support is built into the platform or not).
So I would say, unless you can find some sort of extensible editor for Eclipse - I know Aptana is extensible for tag-based markup - you are probably as well staying with your existing tooling.
Do explore the other IDEs though - I've heard good things about IDEA as well as Netbeans. :)
Good luck!
I can recommend SynWrite editor. Good support for external languages, fully customizable. (Editor of new lexers is there)
I am thinking of modifying an existing IDE (Ex : By developing a plugin) to provide support for a proprietary scripting language. I just need to implement few features like syntax highlighting, Autocompleting etc. (i.e the requirements are really simple). What would be the best IDE or Text editor to integrate the feature. As an example if I think to develop an eclipse plugin for that it would be a pain.
What do you think about Notepad ++?
You might want to give the NetBeans Generic Language Framework a try.
NetBeans project called Generic Languages Framework allows you to define a programming language and integrate it to NetBeans IDE. In the first step you should describe the language - lexical part (define tokens using regular expressions) and syntax (grammar rules). In the second step you can define how to visualize this language in NetBeans. You can define colors for tokens (syntax coloring) or folding (based on grammar rules). You can define what parts of this language should be displayed in the navigator, and how to indent this language plus many other features.
This tutorial should guide you through the process of creating new NetBeans module, adding languages support into it, describing lexical and syntax structure of your language and adding support for all standard editor # features for your language.
Notepad++ allows you to define custom syntax highlight files in a very easy way, but it's not a very good solution for auto-completion (look at this SO question).
If you want a real IDE to extend, I suggest you to use Eclipse.
Update: Tutorial on how to develop an Eclipse plugin.
In vim you can easily add your custom syntax highlighting rules by adding another file in the syntax folder; for the details it is best to look at the help.
If I remember correctly notepad++ also allows defining custom syntax files.