I am looking for an existing free component that can support any number of regular expressions that will be highlighted in the text in any colour. The regular expressions should be configurable to work on a line by line basis, or spanning multiple lines. If such a component does not exist, i am considering creating it. In the past when i tried it though, i had poor performance for regular expressions that spanned multiple lines so any tips on what i should listen to from a JTextArea for example or any other generic tips would be appreciated.