Hi everyone

Firstly, I'm new here, so hello! Secondly, as I'm new here, I apologise in advance if I've posted this in the wrong place or have overlooked the issue being discussed elsewhere - a search didn't reveal anything that I noticed.

I'm looking for a syntax highlighting text editor that will identify standard BBC BASIC keywords. Is there a definition file somewhere for Notepad++ that I've not come across? I would ideally like to code in a Windows environment with this facility, and then transfer the code into Beebem for execution.

Thanks in advance!
Stephen

Not sure about Notepad but EditPlus has a BBC BASIC syntax highlight file. It's a free download for the syntax file but EditPlus is not free, has a 30 day trial though. I've used it for years for a lot of various dev work.

http://www.editplus.com

Thanks; I have also now produced a syntax file for use with Notepad++ and have attached here in case anyone else wants to make use of it.

Hmm ... next up, BeebAsm syntax highlighting?

Nice job, Stephen. I'm trying to learn a new editor, but if I give up and go back to Notepad++ I'll be sure to give it a whirl!

Sam.

First thing I did when moving to beebasm for coding...

Dammit ... why did I choose this year to try to switch to Vim! :/

Do you mind if I add that to the BeebAsm wiki page?

Sam.

We do it deliberately to annoy you

Feel free to put it on the wiki!

Done. I've never managed to stick it out with Vim before, so I may well be back to use them ...

Sam.

I should pay more attention round here. It appears Rich provided a TextPad BeebAsm syntax definition file for Mark nearly two years ago. It was hiding in the .syn file for TExtPad topic in the BeebAsm forum.

I've added a few of the newer keywords and uploaded it to the BeebAsm wiki page alongside the others.

Sam.

Yeah, I really need to keep a better look-out. I just discovered that Rich actually provided a BeebAsm UDL File for Notepad++ last November, though it's hiding in the BeebASM and swift topic in the SWIFT forum.

I've updated the wiki page with a UDL File which is based on Rich's version, but with some additions taken from your version.

Sam.

Hmm ... I had a go at creating a BBC BASIC syntax highlighting file for vim. Very hacked together and not really releasable, but thought I'd post it as a WIP here, in case it's of interest to anyone. It really needs more work, though.

Sam.

Excellent stuff!

I was trying to use Sublime Text around about xmas and I thought it was great so I had a crack at a BeebASM for that. It really wasn't perfect though. If you want it then I can dig it out. I went back to Notepad++ in the end as I just couldn't justify the cost of Sublime Text when it's eval ran out.

On the up side, Sublime Text uses the same syntax highlighting as TextMate (iirc), which is the Mac editor that I bought years ago so it wasn't entirely wasted.

Entirely up to you, Martin. If you think it's of use to anyone else, feel free to post it here. I imagine Notepad++ (and SWIFT for a full IDE) will cover 99% of Windows users as it's probably the most popular free programmers editor, so I guess we've got the most important one covered. I don't know about Macs, but there's no obvious single editor for *nix so those users will probably have to roll their own for their own preferred editor. (If anyone's looking for a Notepad++ equivalent for Linux, apart from running it under WINE, the closest I've found is probably Geany).

Sam.

For Mac you're pretty much looking at BBEdit or TextMate. But TextMate is falling behind as it's not been updated in a very long time now. Well, the fabled 2.0 version hasn't been forthcoming anyway. So, because of that, quite a few others are starting to come out of the woodwork and things are opening up a bit.

One of the things that a lot of them are doing though is making the add-on modules and syntax highlighting / language support compatible with TextMate's format since there's such a wide array of ones already available.

SublimeText that I mentioned earlier is currently at v1.4 and Windows only but the next version (2.0) is going to be for Windows, Linux and Mac so it's a lot more interesting to someone like me who uses a mixed environment. Trouble is, at $59 it was too rich for me, having already shelled out a similar amount for TextMate.

Sadly, the 2.0 alpha is only available to purchasers of 1.4 otherwise I'd have given it a test drive under Linux and Mac.

Risking ridicule because there's almost certainly some reason why this is hilarious to 'in the know' software types but I use PSPad as my editor of choice. It comes with loads of bespoke language highlighter support but I don't think it comes in a Linux version?

No ridicule there, that's very well featured and I may well try it out in the morning. In fact its got something very few editors have these days - column select. The only thing I can see that it doesn't specifically say it's got is theming, but that's often implied in syntax highlighting.

As The Mad Hatter used to say, you pays yer money and you takes yer choice, Martin. Whatever works for ya. Seems fine to me - for what I use them for, there's quite a few of the same type to choose from. After the elderly Programmer's File Editor was doing the rounds bugs-and-all, Crimson Editor was the alternative I searched out and swore by for a long while until all development on it ceased. It's a shame the cross-platform successor Emerald Editor has never really materialised. In the end, I think Notepad++ takes the most popular spot purely because it's one of the few that is also open source, rather than freeware ... not that most ppl ever actually poke around under the covers.

If you knock up a PSPad syntax highlighter file for either BASIC or BeebAsm, feel free to post it here ...

Sam.

Interesting you should mention The Mad Hatter ... I've just received a mail from his son, Pete!

I moved to Notepad++ a few months back, coming from Textpad, which I'd been using for over 10 years. The main reason was that Notepad++ was free and it had a hex editor plugin that allowed you to edit in hex, rather than just view, meaning that I didn't need to have Frhed installed as well.

The only things I miss from Textpad are the "select by block feature" and that the NP++ regex search doesn't seem as good as Textpad's.

I still miss !zap though

Yeah me too. I still think Textpad's a rather 'cleaner' app, a little more streamlined and simple. I liked the block select and sort facility (and used them both often!). My main reason to move on from it was that Textpad 5 was a total rewrite using .NET which worked much slower than the original version, and it looked as if Notepad++ had advanced far beyond it in terms of features.

There are some horrible bugs in Notepad++ though, one of them being to do with creating syntax highlighting definitions - I can't exactly remember the nature of it, but it meant having to do a full uninstall/reinstall to get it usable again. I didn't know about the hex editor plugin - I'll have a look for that.

I remember !Zap being good at the time, particularly its handling of BASIC. But I suspect if I saw it now, it'd look like something from the stone age!