[Info-vax] Notepad++ highlighting for DCL

[Hein RMS van den Heuvel]

On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 7:59:10 AM UTC-4, Jairo Alves wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> Do you guys use Notepad++ to edit DCL scripts?
> 
> I've had Notepad++ DCL highlighting for some time. I have made 
> a very rudimentary syntax highlighting. In case anyone is interested, 
> I'll leave it here.
> 
> <NotepadPlus>
>     <UserLang name="DCL" ext="COM " udlVersion="2.1">
>         <Settings>
>             <Global caseIgnored="yes" allowFoldOfComments="no" 

Thank you Jairo. 

I use Notepad++ on Windows a lot for OpenVMS work, because indeed it is so much better than anything on OpenVMS. 
It is so practical for the core editing work. 
To start off, there is all the functionality for windows/sizing/scrolling horizontally and vertically.
Next there are Search functions like 'count', 'find all in current/all', regex;
Code block shrink/expand; build in Compare; build in Hex; Syntax highlighting, Column mode, line sort, on and on...

FTP/sftp is just a click away for usage (compiler or otherwise). 
I treat the dual presence of file on laptop and OpenVMS as automatic 'backup'.

side-click or command-recall FTP is good enough for me but I can see others desiring a full IDE.
Ok, admittedly LSE on OpenVMS with compiler integration and jumping to lines with errors is nice, but I never felt the need for that that much.

You'll never win over the 'diehard' (stuborn?!) OpenVMS folks. 
Just let them be.

Anyway, 
your DCL syntax is a fine start, but only a start as you realize.

I happen to not like your color choices (probably because I work with a white background), but that's easily fixed.

It is not nearly as complete/smart/useful as the Notepad++ implementations for SQL, Json, Perl, C languages but it can help.

Defining quote and apostrophes each as begin and end delimiters can nicely highlight strings and certain symbol name usages... but then you must write clean dcl with strings and substituted symbol nicely terminate with quote/apos.

That might look something like:
            <Keywords name="Delimiters">00[ 01 02] 03( 04 05) 06" 07 08" 09' 10 11' 12 13 14: 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23</Keywords>

:
            <WordsStyle name="DELIMITERS1" fgColor="008000" bgColor="FFFFFF" colorStyle="1" fontName="" fontStyle="2" fontSize="" nesting="0" />
            <WordsStyle name="DELIMITERS2" fgColor="000000" bgColor="FFFFFF" colorStyle="1" fontName="" fontStyle="0" fontSize="" nesting="0" />
            <WordsStyle name="DELIMITERS3" fgColor="800000" bgColor="FFFFFF" fontName="" fontStyle="0" fontSize="" nesting="0" />
            <WordsStyle name="DELIMITERS4" fgColor="FF0000" bgColor="FFFFFF" fontName="" fontStyle="0" fontSize="" nesting="0" />

Thanks,
Hein