Page 1 of 1

Best syntax highlighting

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 11:46 am
by matthijs
Just starting to work with textmate as my code editor for php (and html,css,etc). I can choose from a bunch of themes for the colors but none of theme are really good. I can also make my own theme. Even try to match the color coding used on our forums.

But before doing that I wondered
- what colors do people prefer? Dark on light background? Light on dark background?
- do you have a cool color theme lying around somewhere?

I know, very subjective subject. But still, some combinations are just easier to read etc. So still interesting to know people's opinions. Or am I the only crazy fool thinking about this?

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 11:52 am
by jayshields
Just stick with the colour coding from php.net.

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 11:52 am
by timvw
I think this is extremely subjective... So i'm not sure how much our opinion is worthing something... Anyway i prefer to use the "torte" colorscheme in vim.

(http://timvw.madoka.be/images/torte.jpg)

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 12:21 pm
by alex.barylski
I use the colors from C++ IDE's most noatably Borland IDE:
- Green comments, italicized
- Blue keywords, boldified
- Red strings, normal
- Fuscia numbers (hex/dec), normal

White background

Thats about all I can think of for this subject...even more subjective than coding conventions...depends on your vision I guess...I think it's been determined that a white background is ideal...likley by the same people who study ergonomics of hardware like a mouse or QWERTY keyboards, etc...

Personal choice I guess...who knows

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 12:27 pm
by matthijs
Thanks for the feedback guys. I know it's subjective. But even then it's nice to hear what people use and prefer. We don't have to be afraid we start a flame war because I prefer pink and Hockey purple, don't we? :)

Even some examples give me some ideas. At the moment I'm thinking about the colors of these forum or of php net. What Hockey says is a variant on these I think. I'll try that one too.

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 12:43 pm
by alex.barylski
matthijs wrote:Thanks for the feedback guys. I know it's subjective. But even then it's nice to hear what people use and prefer. We don't have to be afraid we start a flame war because I prefer pink and Hockey purple, don't we? :)

Even some examples give me some ideas. At the moment I'm thinking about the colors of these forum or of php net. What Hockey says is a variant on these I think. I'll try that one too.
Flame war...naw...not with me anyways... ;)

p.s-I'm glad you offered to take the pink... :P *lol*

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 1:17 pm
by MrPotatoes
i like a light gray background instead of white or black. and comments to either be blue or grey (depending on the BG). i don't like black BG"s for my code because it honestly makes everything seem like 15 yr/old script kiddie and white is too 1990's IBM (i'm saying big business)

toned down colours is what i like :D

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 1:36 pm
by Weirdan
personally I prefer dark grey background. To me, white background as ergonomic as qwerty keyboards are (ever heard of Dvorak?)

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 1:56 pm
by matthijs
Hockey wrote: Flame war...naw...not with me anyways... ;)

p.s-I'm glad you offered to take the pink... :P *lol*
Hehe yeah I made sure to do that. I assume you have seen Reservoir Dogs? That scene is classic :)

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 2:02 pm
by pedrotuga
I prefer black background, but so far i havent found an editor for windows with a dark background. I use notepad2 wich has a black background theme but it comes with some very dark blue colors wich are not so noticeable, so iuse its default scheme. You can have a look on their website.

example of themes i dont like:
-notepad2 deafault
-ultraedit default

BTW, i need to get used to a console editor, i think "vi or emacs" discussion mught not take anywhere as it never did, but i would like to know about the learning curve. Emacs appear to have a bigger learning curve then vi... is it realy like that?

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 2:06 pm
by alex.barylski
matthijs wrote:
Hockey wrote: Flame war...naw...not with me anyways... ;)

p.s-I'm glad you offered to take the pink... :P *lol*
Hehe yeah I made sure to do that. I assume you have seen Reservoir Dogs? That scene is classic :)
When I had hair...I shave my head as you can tell...

I was constantly told I looked, acted and sounded like Quentin Tarrintino...so yes...I'm more than aware of Resevoir dogs...as everyone that met me wanted to watch his movies in my presence...

It was quite annoying after a while... :roll:

Doogie Howser was another one I always got *lol*

So I started working out, gained a bit of weight, grew a beard and shaved my head...and now...now one tells me who I look like :P

My pink...played by Steve Buscheme??? Crazy bugger

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 5:48 pm
by RobertGonzalez
Notepad++ gives total control over the color cheme. I like a simple scheme modeled after the PHP Highlight String color set up, with some bolding for control structures and not italics for comments.

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 7:55 pm
by feyd
I dislike italizing, bolding or any other emphasis. Coloring is all I need, but do not require unless it's "find my bug." I can't stand having my text misaligned by font mark changes. So yes, fixed width is a must too.

Yes, this is quite personal preferencing. I can deal with variantions of color as long as they are distinctive enough.

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 8:42 pm
by wei
I prefer black background and bright coloured text, such as orange, bright green, cyan, light purple, and pale yellow.

Another thing i change is the font, my favourite font for programming in windows is Pixel Carnage, it is a wide mono font, with clear distinction betweel 1, l, o,0, etc.

http://www.proggyfonts.com/index.php?menu=download

Fonts makes a big difference I think.

Posted: Sun Sep 10, 2006 4:26 am
by pedrotuga
hey every one, just to tell everybody that by now i am satisfied with syntax highlight on nano.
I wont get into emacs or vi so soon.

if anybody wants to add syntax highlight on nano it takes 1 minute to set up... ok 2 maybe
check this out.
http://wiki.linuxhelp.net/index.php/Nan ... ghlighting

i like the default theme... a bit diferent than the usual... it has some top level regex... like... some higlighting into strings... personaly i dont think is so bad, becaus some strings are paths, sql queries, urls... so i think its kind of cool to have syntax highlingt within the strings as well...

well... check it out. now i can code directly from the console with the confort of syntax highlight.