mmokross/comments_highlighter

Intellij IDEA plugin to improve code commenting with highlighting

Comments Highlighter

This plugin allows creating custom highlighting for commented lines and language keyword. Commented lines highlighting is supported for any language, highlighting of language keywords supports Java, Kotlin, PHP, Javascript/Typescript, C/C++/ObjectiveC and C# ( for example, highlight "public" keyword). Plugin has possibility to define custom user tokens for commented line highlighting.

How to add comment highlighting token or language keyword

• Open settings window
• Editor->Comment Highlighter
• Click on "+" sign, select type of highlight token/keyword and enter token/keyword itself in popup. (Third screenshot of plugin)
• Click "Apply"
• Reopen settings window. This is mandatory step due to bug in Intellij

How to enable comment highlighting in plain text files

• Open settings window
• Editor->Comment Highlighter
• Enable checkbox "Enable comment highlighting in Plain text files."
• Click "Apply"

In plain text files could be used "#" or "//" as a comment line.

Implementation notes

General architecture is simple and has 2 main parts:

• Annotators:
  • AbstractCommentHighlighterAnnotator abstract Annotator to highlight comments defined in Intellij AST.
    • GenericCommentHighlighterAnnotator highlights PsiComment type. In such way plugin is able to handle any language, supported by Intellij IDEA.
  • AbstractKeywordHighlighterAnnotator abstract Annotator to highlight keywords defined in Intellij AST.
    • Each language requires specific implementation of isKeywordElement and isMethodAccessModifierKeyword.
    • findClassByName is used instead of instanceof comparing to be able to compile plugin on any type of IDE( PyCharm,Rider etc).
    • Language specific implementations:
      • JavaKeywordHighlighterAnnotator
      • KotlinKeywordHighlighterAnnotator
      • CKeywordHighlighterAnnotator
      • CSharpKeywordHighlighterAnnotator
      • PHPKeywordHighlighterAnnotator
      • JavaScriptKeywordHighlighterAnnotator
  • AbstractLexerPostProcessingHighlighterAnnotator abstract Annotator to highlight both comments and keywords defined in Lexer segments. Used for files, which have only lexer highlighting, for example C++ files in Rider.
    • CPPLexerPostProcessingHighlighterAnnotator highlights CppElementType comment and keyword tokens in CPPFile type.
• Highlighters:
  • CommentHighlighter main class to define, what part of comment must be highlighted.
  • KeywordHighlighter main class to define, what keywords must be highlighted.

Version history

2.4.1

• (Feature) Add possibility to highlight Javascript/Typescript keywords.

2.4

• (Feature) Add support of Lexer based highlighting, which is used in Rider to highlight C++ files.
• (Feature) Add support for java tokens highlighting (null, true, false).

2.3.2

• (Bug Fix) Fix comment highlighting for tokens, which contains other tokens.

2.3.1

• (Bug Fix) Fix comment highlighting for Twig and Blade templates.

2.3

• (Bug Fix) Add tab sign as valid start line char.
• (Feature) Add possibility to highlight PHP keywords.

2.2

• (Feature) Add possibility to highlight comments in plain txt files.
• (Feature) Add keyword highlighting for C/C++/ObjectiveC.
• (Feature) Add possibility to highlight Kotlin keywords.
• (Improvement) Migrate on newest gradle.
• (Improvement) Move settings into panel into "Editor" section.

2.1

• (Feature) Add keyword highlighting for C#.
• (Feature) Add possibility to remove/modify default tokens.
• (Feature) Add possibility to highlight any keyword type, not only method keywords.

2.0

• (Feature) Add possibility to create custom highlighting for java keyword.
• (Feature) Add default highlight for public keyword.
• (Improvement) Migrate on newest gradle.

1.3.6

• (Improvement) Migrate on java 11 toolchain.

1.3.5

• (Improvement) Migrate on non-deprecated api usage.
• (Improvement) Disable until version plugin definition.

1.3.4

• (Bug Fix) Fix StringIndexOutOfBoundsException on Rider IDE.

1.3.3

• (Bug Fix) Made compatible with EAP builds.

1.3.2

• (Documentation) Add how-to define custom user token.

1.3.1

• (Feature) Add possibility to create custom tokens.
• (Bug Fix) Define plugin compatibility starting from version 2019.1.

1.2

• (Feature) Improve performance.
• (Feature) Change default color scheme.

1.1

• (Bug Fix) Fix fail positive highlight of xml comments.

1.0

• (Feature) Add support for one line, multi line and doc comments highlighting.