syntax highlighting

[alexismor]

Hi everyone,

I have a quick question about using proper syntax highlighting with the visual studio text editor. It used to be that:

-the editor would indicate when I closed parentheses
-I could quickly jump from one subroutine to another within the file by using a drop-down menu in the editor
-text within print statements would be pink,

etc...

I just did a reinstall of my operating system and of all the software, but now I just have basic syntax highlighting. I just thought that I'd ask in case there was a simple option that I was missing somewhere...

THanks!

[Steven_L_Intel1]

Those features may have worked for C++ code - but not for Fortran. Unfortunately, the interface that would allow us to provide such a feature is not made available by Microsoft to Visual Studio integration partners.

[alexismor]

I swear that it worked for fortran code, as that's the only kind of code that I've been writing since installing Visual Studio. I think that I noticed these features after I upgraded to fortran 9.0. Come to think of it, I may have also installed demos for other compilers around that same time. Maybe that explains it...

If I get the nice highlighting back, I'll let you know.

Cheers,

Alexis

[Steven_L_Intel1]

If you do, I'll be VERY interested to learn which compiler gave this to you...

[alexismor]

Hi Steve,

I got the nice syntax highlighting back! All I had to do was to install the salford fortran 95 compiler (I used the personal edition). I've attacthed a screenshot to demonstrate the niceness.

Cheers,

Alexis

[Steven_L_Intel1]

Hmm - I thought you could change the colors for various token types, but I can't find that. That they have the "IntelliSense" is interesting - I wonder if that's because it's a .NET MSIL compiler? I'll have to talk to our IDE integration people about this.

[alexismor]

I'm glad that for once I was able to contribute something :)

[wkramer]

Getting the text in a print statement showing up pink is also possible with basic syntax coloring, by setting the color for strings to pink under options|environment|fonts and colors.

Walter Kramer

[Steven_L_Intel1]

Oh, is that where it moved to?

[emc-nyc]

I find it interesting, and possibly worrisome, that the settings for Salford's compiler can effect the way that IVF is displayed. What other kind of crosstalk between compilers can show up?

On a less concerned note, I believe vim has a plugin to allow use of it as the editor in the .NET IDE

http://www.vim.org/tips/tip.php?tip_id=946 for a pointer to the vim plugin

VisEmacs worked with VisualStudio 6, but does not (apparently) work with with .NET

http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/emacs-en/VisEmacs

I've not tried either of these with .NET; I tend to write code in emacs and mostly use the IDE for debugging (when I started programming, the editor was an IBM card punch....). One can, in theory, use emacs as for just about everything, but I'm an emacs user, not a religious zealot.

[Steven_L_Intel1]

VS.NET separates by language, but doesn't further distinguish among multiple compilers for the same language. As it happens, whoever installs last is given "control" over files of a particular language type. There is only one source formatter per language, for example.

[emc-nyc]

Interesting. Is there any other kind of crosstalk between different vendors' languages, such as directories for include files, compiler options, etc or is it just syntax highlighting?

As I said, I tend to use editors independent of the IDE mostly because my fingers have been trained for emacs, so the IDE's editor's features are not really important. I also only have IVF and C++ installed under .NET. My very short term installations of eiffel and F# were not pleasant, so I have become convinced that some vendors are not as careful as they should be.

[Steven_L_Intel1]

Not include files, libraries and options. I'm not entirely sure how VS.NET chooses to hand off control to a vendor's "project manager" for the build - since creation of projects is vendor-specific, that may be ok. My recollection of when I tried it with Lahey Fortran was that the projects were kept separate.

[ivfuser]

I would be *very* interested in even an unsupported hack which would provide visual cues for parentheses closure and roll-over, similar to what the MATLAB native editor does. This is a matter of interest, not a feature request.