Sublime Forum

ST4: How to highlight/dimm code based on regex

#1

I’m transitioning from VS Code to ST4.
Here is how I have custom highlighting/dimming of code based on regex in VS Code:

image
image.jpg1748×712 278 KB

Basically I ignore all the syntax, and then highlight stuff that I care about, and dimm stuff that I rarely wanna read. I use regex to detect interesting places in code.

How to do the same in ST4? I’ve tried installing some packages mentioned here in the Forum, but I don’t have a clue what to do next. How to configure stuff.

I can pay a consulting fee to someone to get it done the way I need to.

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#2

Bumping this up

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#3

I don’t know of any package which would do this, but in general highlighting is mostly a combination of the used syntax and color scheme. So to turn off all the syntax highlighting, you could create a custom color scheme, but leave the "rules" empty. If you want to dim entire lines like in the screenshot above via regex, one idea would be to create an adjusted syntax definition and assign a specific scope to such lines. But this probably has some disadvantages, because other features might not work then on those lines and it might potentially break the syntax if there are unbalanced brackets etc.

The screenshot looks like JavaScript, so you could save a custom JavaScriptDimmed.sublime-syntax file into your User folder like this:

%YAML 1.2
---
name: JavaScript Dimmed
scope: source.js
version: 2

extends: Packages/JavaScript/JavaScript.sublime-syntax

contexts:
  prototype:
    - meta_append: true
    - match: ^\s*assert.*$
      scope: meta.dimmed.js

and a color scheme e.g. derived from the Breakers color scheme, Breakers Dimmed.sublime-color-scheme:

{
    "name": "Breakers Dimmed",
    "variables":
    {
        "blue": "hsl(210, 50%, 60%)",
        "blue-vibrant": "hsl(210, 60%, 60%)",
        "blue2": "hsl(180, 36%, 54%)",
        "green": "hsl(114, 31%, 60%)",
        "grey": "hsl(0, 0%, 73%)",
        "grey2": "hsl(0, 0%, 60%)",
        "grey3": "hsl(0, 0%, 20%)",
        "orange": "hsl(32, 93%, 66%)",
        "orange2": "hsl(32, 85%, 55%)",
        "orange3": "hsl(40, 94%, 68%)",
        "pink": "hsl(300, 30%, 68%)",
        "red": "hsl(357, 79%, 65%)",
        "red2": "hsl(13, 93%, 66%)",
        "red3": "hsl(16, 29%, 54%)",
        "white": "hsl(0, 0%, 97%)",
        "white2": "hsl(210, 11%, 85%)",
        "white3": "hsla(204, 10%, 86%, 0.7)",
        "white4": "hsl(195, 11%, 93%)",
        "white5": "hsl(180, 9%, 99%)"
    },
    "globals":
    {
        "foreground": "var(grey3)",
        "background": "var(white5)",
        "accent": "var(blue-vibrant)",
        "caret": "var(blue2)",
        "block_caret": "color(var(white3) a(0.5))",
        "line_highlight": "var(white3)",
        "selection": "var(white3)",
        "selection_border": "var(white2)",
        "inactive_selection": "var(white4)",
        "misspelling": "var(red)",
        "shadow": "var(grey)",
        "active_guide": "var(blue2)",
        "stack_guide": "color(var(blue2) alpha(0.5))",
        "highlight": "var(blue2)",
        "find_highlight_foreground": "var(grey3)",
        "find_highlight": "var(orange3)",
        "brackets_options": "underline",
        "brackets_foreground": "var(orange)",
        "bracket_contents_options": "underline",
        "bracket_contents_foreground": "var(blue2)",
        "tags_options": "stippled_underline",
        "tags_foreground": "var(pink)"
    },
    "rules": [
        {
            "scope": "meta.dimmed",
            "foreground": "var(grey)"
        },
    ]
}

Then select/assign this syntax and color scheme when desired.

To highlight single words independently might be possible via a plugin using View.add_regions API, but I don’t want to go into detail here because it would be more complex and I don’t really see the purpose. For certain keywords you could also check via Tools > Developer > Show Scope Name if they have a dedicated scope assigned, and add a special rule for that into the color scheme, if that is the case (here e.g. keyword.control.flow.await).

Docs link:
https://www.sublimetext.com/docs/color_schemes.html

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