The Visual Studio IDE does this already, but with a different visualization - you can expand and contract nested blocks by clicking the +/- buttons on the left margin.
Daniel Earwicker
2009-03-18 21:09:27
A:
Ehh...I'm not a huge fan of code folding.
EBGreen
2009-03-18 21:10:45
Yes, but those don't give any clue as to the type of structure (whether it's an if statement, a class defintition, a catch block, etc..
Eclipse
2009-03-18 21:11:49
@EBGreen - agreed. In my experience code folding allows people to write obscenely large methods and then just hide it in a fold to hide the code smell. I've encountered folds that were over 1K lines long, next to several other 1K line folds in the same method.
Matt
2009-03-18 21:32:12
Especially since the lines are colorized based on the structure they represent.
Eclipse
2009-03-18 21:13:18
implementing this sort of color scheme would be fairly trivial in Vim, I would think...
rmeador
2009-03-18 21:23:53
NB: It uses outlines instead of background coloring because of VS's limitations.CMS: The correct name is "Codekana".rmeadoe: A basic version of this is non-trivial. An advanced version is highly non-trivial.Chris Nava: I implemented it for VS, doing it for Eclipse must be hell.
jonbho
2009-03-21 20:53:29
A:
A nice idea. Personally, I really don't like folding editors, but this would be quite tolerable - you'd want to be able to toggle it on/off easily though. Perhaps someone has already done this for the hyper-programmable editors like vim and emacs?
anon
2009-03-18 21:14:51
A:
I think Xcode 3 does roughly what you want, especially with Focus Follows Selection enabled. Individual blocks are highlighted as you hover over them in the sidebar.
Sören Kuklau
2009-03-18 21:15:00
The question mentions C#, but also C++, and doesn't really seem to focus on any language at all.
Sören Kuklau
2009-03-18 21:38:45
You are correct, but with the C# and Visual Studio tag I would say that MS focus is likely.
EBGreen
2009-03-19 13:39:40
A:
Existing SO question with some emacs implementations for lisp:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/318785/emacs-mode-that-highlight-lisp-forms
dmckee
2009-03-18 21:18:57
That's not bad, but it all seems to be about highlighting based on nesting depth and not the type of structure. Depth I get already based on indendation.
Eclipse
2009-03-18 21:26:26
+10
A:
I'm the author of Codekana. Indeed, what you describe above was the main goal for the product. BTW, I'm about to publish an article about the "making of" and the underlying technology, which is pretty nifty. It will probably be available next week (March 26, '09 or so). Recommended reading, if I may say so myself.
The reason Codekana only provides outlines, instead of a colored background, are limitations in VS's text rendering extensibility. I will hopefully be able to implement a solid-background version at some point in the future, although it will definitely require serious hacking and "rocket surgery".
I would have commented above, instead of providing another answer, but my reputation doesn't allow commenting. :(
[UPDATE: Thanks for the upvotes, now I can comment!]
jonbho
2009-03-21 19:34:26
I'm looking forward to your write-up. I'm playing around with the demo right now, and it's looking pretty good.
Eclipse
2009-03-21 21:12:34
Josh: Thanks! Let me know if anything acts up, via the support form, I'll get back in touch via email. Or on Twitter, I recently joined (jonbho).
jonbho
2009-03-22 00:05:25
A:
You should try this Addin and you will never work in visual studio without it, http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/index.html
PS: I'm not affiliated with this company or product but I'm an addict using it and I can never work without it, it saves me alot of time in my coding tasks and code exploration and debugging.
Code Guru
2009-03-22 09:31:09