Hi
Currently when I edit a JSON file, it looks like this. Almost everything is in yellow (which is my default color for strings):
I would love to have a different color for JSON keys (here in pink but it doesn’t matter):
This way, I reckon it is way easier to spot string as values vs keys!
Here are the regions highlighters currently defined in json.kak:
add-highlighter shared/json regions
add-highlighter shared/json/code default-region group
add-highlighter shared/json/string region '"' (?<!\\)(\\\\)*" fill string
add-highlighter shared/json/code/ regex \b(true|false|null|\d+(?:\.\d+)?(?:[eE][+-]?\d*)?)\b 0:value
I must admit that I’m very lame at writing regions delimiter and I failed to achieve what I depicted on the 2nd screenshot.
Does someone have the magic incantation for this?
1 Like
I gave it a shot. To me it seems it would be pretty difficult to handle JSON highlighting using regions in case such as this, so I ditched them and took regex only route:
add-highlighter shared/json group
add-highlighter shared/json/string regex (?<!\\)("(?:[^"]|\\")*(?<!\\)") 1:string
add-highlighter shared/json/key regex (?<!\\)("(?:[^"]|\\")*(?<!\\)")\s*: 1:green
add-highlighter shared/json/literal regex \b(true|false|null|\d+(?:\.\d+)?(?:[eE][+-]?\d*)?)\b 0:value
Wasn’t sure which face would be semantically best here, so left it at green.
1 Like
Thanks a lot @cipharius ! Really appreciate your help.
I was about to try the regex road as well.
Here’s what it looks with your snippet:
Literals like numbers, true and false are hightlighted inside strings.
By moving the last hightlighter on first position, here’s the result:
I decided to use the keyword face for JSON keys, since it’s the one used by CSS properties, which are “quite” similar.
Finally, I put everything in a ModuleLoaded hook to overwrite the default highlighter provided by Kakoune:
hook global ModuleLoaded json %{
remove-highlighter shared/json
add-highlighter shared/json group
add-highlighter shared/json/literal regex \b(true|false|null|\d+(?:\.\d+)?(?:[eE][+-]?\d*)?)\b 0:value
add-highlighter shared/json/string regex (?<!\\)("(?:[^"]|\\")*(?<!\\)") 1:string
add-highlighter shared/json/key regex (?<!\\)("(?:[^"]|\\")*(?<!\\)")\s*: 1:keyword
}
Do you think we should make a PR to change the current json.kak?
I thought about creating PR as well. Even if it doesn’t get accepted as is, I think it would still act as a useful thread for discussion.
If you don’t mind, I want to create the PR as I’m attending the Hacktoberfest event and I need few more PRs.
1 Like
Sure no problem! I let you create the PR.
