How to start a project with Scintilla?

Question

I have been trying to do a project based on the Scintilla editor and since I'm a newbie I don't know how to actually start a project. I followed the steps on the Readme and was able to build Scintilla on Windows and now trying to figure out what I should do next.

Any sort of answer/suggestion/advice is highly appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

I found it a bit daunting when i started with my lexer but everything boils down to a few important ideas:

• Put lexer in lexer folder
• Tell scintilla about the lexer you added
• Add your constants to scintilla.iface
• Tell scintilla about your own Constants (if you use any)
• Code/Compile + Repeat until satisfied

An actual example is:

After you create your Lexer Template you name it LexNEW.cxx

• Put LexNew.cxx in /lexers folder
• Enter in /src and run LexGen.py, this tells scintilla that there is a new lexer by adding it to Scintilla.h

Now you add your constants to the .iface file. The most important ones are: val SCLEX_NEW=108 where 108 is an unused id number and lex new=SCLEX_NEW SCE_NEW_ where new is a valid unique short identifier for your lexer.

Put them in the same sections as the others (to avoid confusion later on) and if in doubt use one of the other definitions as a template!

Now below your lex new= line you can define your own constant values like:

val SCE_NEW_DEFAULT=0
val SCE_NEW_COMMENTLINE=1
val SCE_NEW_COMMENTBLOCK=2
val SCE_NEW_ERROR=31

After this step you are almost ready.

• Enter in /include and run Hface.py which tells scintilla about your new constants.

If your lex code is valid then you are ready to compile.

Remember to repeat that last step every time you create a new constant. The HFace.py script adds those values to SciLexer.h which you can do manually if you prefer not to do two steps every time.

And thats it my friend after compiled make sure your program sets your lexer with something like: sci.SetLexer(108) and put some colors to each state like sci.StyleSetFore(01, 0x008800) // SCE_NEW_COMMENTLINE and so on.

One last thing you will want to use SciLexer.dll which is the one that contains all lexers not scintilla.dll Good luck!

Answer 2

You may find that Scintilla for .NET gives you a head start ...

Answer 3

I am working on Scintilla based project, and share with you some of my experience. To start a project, first download SciLexer.dll, SciLexer.h and Scintilla.h.

Then build your demo project based on the framework:

   #include "Scintilla.h"
   #include "SciLexer.h" 
   static HWND global_editor_win = NULL;

      int WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPTSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)
       {            
           HMODULE hmod = ::LoadLibrary(_T("SciLexer.dll"));       
           //other winmain code.
       }

      LRESULT CALLBACK WndProc(HWND hWnd, UINT message, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
       {
        RECT rc;       
        switch (message)   {
           case WM_CREATE:
                GetClientRect(hWnd, &rc);
                global_editor_win = ::CreateWindow(_T("Scintilla"), "Source",
                              WS_CHILD | WS_VSCROLL | WS_HSCROLL | WS_CLIPCHILDREN,
                              rc.left, rc.top, rc.right - rc.left, rc.bottom - rc.top,
                              hWnd, (HMENU)1001, hInst, 0); 

               ::SendMessage(global_editor_win , SCI_SETTEXT, 0, (LPARAM)"hello, world");   
                ShowWindow(global_editor_win , SW_SHOW);
               break;   
          }
       }

Enjoy!