Channel 9 Forums - Coffeehouse - Rich text source files. http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/Dev/App_Themes/C9/images/feedimage.png Channel 9 Forums - Coffeehouse - Rich text source files. http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums Channel 9 keeps you up to date with the latest news and behind the scenes info from Microsoft that developers love to keep up with. From LINQ to SilverLight – Watch videos and hear about all the cool technologies coming and the people behind them. http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums en Mon, 20 May 2013 19:53:56 GMT Mon, 20 May 2013 19:53:56 GMT Rev9 7 -7 -1 Coffeehouse - Rich text source files. Why are we still stuck with using plain vanilla (albeit Unicode) text as source files?
 
What if I want to include tables in my comments, underline something, put something else in bold or even highlight a paragraph and change the color? Or maybe put an expainatory picture in there? Or a hyperlink? And while I'm at it - save the whole thing as XML instead of a text file?

Or maybe I can, I just don't know about it?

There has been much discussion over the years
about how to document code. And how to keep code
and documentation in sync. Javadoc and XML comments
are a step in the right direction. And nowadays
we've got syntax color coding to help us in our
daily work. I think it would rock if I didn't have to have one set of source files, and one set of Word-files for documenation.

Ofcourse there is a very real risk of vendor or format lock-in. But let's assume for a second that everyone gets along and uses XML, RTF or something when saving the files. Couldn't this be both convenient and increase productivity?

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/1277-Rich-text-source-files/1277#1277 Fri, 09 Apr 2004 01:45:31 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/1277-Rich-text-source-files/1277#1277 lars 7 http://channel9.msdn.com/Niners/lars/Discussions/RSS Coffeehouse - Rich text source files. I think this is a really good idea.  I cant tell you how many times a picture would have been a much better comment than text alone could provide. 

I dont think there is any reason to change the compilers though, you just need an IDE that will strip out the non-code stuff before it sends it to the compiler.  Maybe someone (you?) should fork one of the open source C# IDE's and add this feature.

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/1277-Rich-text-source-files/a5a9478fab04491c8c789dea0111bc90#a5a9478fab04491c8c789dea0111bc90 Fri, 09 Apr 2004 04:28:58 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/1277-Rich-text-source-files/a5a9478fab04491c8c789dea0111bc90#a5a9478fab04491c8c789dea0111bc90 Pseudo 7 http://channel9.msdn.com/Niners/Pseudo/Discussions/RSS Coffeehouse - Rich text source files.
lars wrote:
save the whole thing as XML instead of a text file?


Oh dear..

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/1277-Rich-text-source-files/dfe8742780b1461dace59dea0111bcbe#dfe8742780b1461dace59dea0111bcbe Fri, 09 Apr 2004 08:02:36 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/1277-Rich-text-source-files/dfe8742780b1461dace59dea0111bcbe#dfe8742780b1461dace59dea0111bcbe jj5 7 http://channel9.msdn.com/Niners/jj5/Discussions/RSS Coffeehouse - Rich text source files. Yes! Here's a few thoughts I had on this a while ago http://jdanielsmith.org/DML.

This whole idea is also in-line with what Knuth proposed a long time ago with "Literate Programming", see http://sunburn.stanford.edu/~knuth/cweb.html


]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/1277-Rich-text-source-files/dc1469da31f44e6099499dea0111bd07#dc1469da31f44e6099499dea0111bd07 Fri, 09 Apr 2004 14:19:57 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/1277-Rich-text-source-files/dc1469da31f44e6099499dea0111bd07#dc1469da31f44e6099499dea0111bd07 JDanielSmith 7 http://channel9.msdn.com/Niners/JDanielSmith/Discussions/RSS Coffeehouse - Rich text source files. Thats why I like the idea of style sheets:
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=851

No need to explain further about seperation of code and independent developer visual preferences.

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/1277-Rich-text-source-files/2104d84cfa24434885809dea0111bd34#2104d84cfa24434885809dea0111bd34 Fri, 09 Apr 2004 15:15:41 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/1277-Rich-text-source-files/2104d84cfa24434885809dea0111bd34#2104d84cfa24434885809dea0111bd34 HE3 7 http://channel9.msdn.com/Niners/HE3/Discussions/RSS Coffeehouse - Rich text source files. Darn, Knuth is always one step ahead. Smiley

I like the CSS idea too. I could actually end the whole "best position of curly braces" war forever. And everyone is a winner.

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/1277-Rich-text-source-files/9bd75025a1da40e6b6819dea0111bd5f#9bd75025a1da40e6b6819dea0111bd5f Sat, 10 Apr 2004 11:08:54 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/1277-Rich-text-source-files/9bd75025a1da40e6b6819dea0111bd5f#9bd75025a1da40e6b6819dea0111bd5f lars 7 http://channel9.msdn.com/Niners/lars/Discussions/RSS Coffeehouse - Rich text source files. I wrote something like this a few years back when I was using Eiffel. I needed a way of printing my code and I hacked together a syntax highlighter which read in its bits and pieces from an XML based definition file for the language and made it all pretty...

I worked out you only really need 2 rules for highlighting, which could be elaborated upon for positional info too Smiley

1st rule: Highlight key words. void, public etc.

2nd rule: Highlight between 2 identifiers. {}, "", /* */ etc.

There are times where languages dont use a symbolic closing identifier, so identifiers can also include a new line break (for example "//"), and a range till the end of a term, like a hexadecimal number (for example $ff3)

For each range define color and font style (with different styles for alpha and numerics). Inside each range you can also add lists of keywords for highlighting.

I found I could write highlighters for Eiffel, Delphi, C++, and Java using these simple rules.

Anyone interesting in taking this somewhere? Smiley

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/1277-Rich-text-source-files/51a651231c5f452eb7789dea0111bd8f#51a651231c5f452eb7789dea0111bd8f Sat, 10 Apr 2004 11:37:56 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/1277-Rich-text-source-files/51a651231c5f452eb7789dea0111bd8f#51a651231c5f452eb7789dea0111bd8f miseldine 7 http://channel9.msdn.com/Niners/miseldine/Discussions/RSS