About this Visual Studio Code extension

This extension is for people that want a more "in the face" approach on highlighting content between symbols.
Symbols can be custom defined, the extension is not limited to only brackets. Sadly the extension name cannot be changed retroactively.
It provides a very configurable CSS style markup for the whole text between opening and closing symbols or only the symbols themselves.
There are preset options for all kinds of brackets.

Features

Finds the corresponding symbol for the currently selected configured symbol and adds decorations to the text inbetween or only to the symbols themselves.

Decoration examples:

• user defined opening and closing symbols

• multi symbol matching

• multi cursor support

• highlight only the enclosing symbols

• change the color of highlighted text

• bold text with increased letter spacing

• red border around text

• underlined text

• changed background color

• blurred out text

• separate highlighting of symbols and content

• ... Lots of additional possibilities. Just configure it the way you like it.

Hotkey actions:

• Jump to/out of highlighted opening and closing symbols
• Select the text between highlighted symbols
  

Extension Settings

This extension contributes the following settings:

• BracketHighlighter.enableExtension: enables the extension when set.
• BracketHighlighter.maxLineSearchCount: The maximum amount of lines to search for a matching symbol. If nothing is found by this number, nothing will be highlighted.
• BracketHighlighter.highlightScopeFromText: Allows highlighting when clicking inside of a scope. It will search for the scope of all enabled symbols.
• BracketHighlighter.allowedLanguageIds: IDs which this extension will work on. Leaving this blank will enable it globally. Identifiers have to be separated by a comma. E.g. c,cpp,java
• BracketHighlighter.reverseSearchEnabled: Enables searching from closing symbols.
• BracketHighlighter.useParentheses: enables highlighting between parentheses '()'.
• BracketHighlighter.useBraces: enables highlighting between braces '{}'.
• BracketHighlighter.useBrackets: enables highlighting between brackets '[]'.
• BracketHighlighter.useAngularBrackets: enables highlighting between angular brackets '<>'.
• BracketHighlighter.fontWeight: fontWeight in CSS style. E.g. 'bold'. If separate highlighting for symbols and content is used, this parameter is used for the content
• BracketHighlighter.fontStyle: fontStyle in CSS style. E.g. 'oblique'. If separate highlighting for symbols and content is used, this parameter is used for the content
• BracketHighlighter.letterSpacing: letterSpacing in CSS style. E.g. '1px'. If separate highlighting for symbols and content is used, this parameter is used for the content
• BracketHighlighter.outline: outline in CSS style. E.g. '2px dashed blue'. If separate highlighting for symbols and content is used, this parameter is used for the content
• BracketHighlighter.border: border in CSS style. E.g. '4px dotted blue'. If separate highlighting for symbols and content is used, this parameter is used for the content
• BracketHighlighter.backgroundColor: backgroundColor in CSS style. E.g. 'coral'. If separate highlighting for symbols and content is used, this parameter is used for the content
• BracketHighlighter.differentSymbolHighlightingUsed: If enabled, separate text decorations can be used for symbols and content.
• BracketHighlighter.fontWeightSymbol: Parameter is used for symbols only if separate highlighting for symbols and content is enabled: fontWeight in CSS style. E.g. 'bold'
• BracketHighlighter.fontStyleSymbol: Parameter is used for symbols only if separate highlighting for symbols and content is enabled: fontStyle in CSS style. E.g. 'oblique'
• BracketHighlighter.letterSpacingSymbol: Parameter is used for symbols only if separate highlighting for symbols and content is enabled: letterSpacing in CSS style. E.g. '1px'
• BracketHighlighter.outlineSymbol: Parameter is used for symbols only if separate highlighting for symbols and content is enabled: outline in CSS style. E.g. '2px dashed blue'
• BracketHighlighter.borderSymbol: Parameter is used for symbols only if separate highlighting for symbols and content is enabled: border in CSS style. E.g. '4px dotted blue'
• BracketHighlighter.backgroundColorSymbol: Parameter is used for symbols only if separate highlighting for symbols and content is enabled: backgroundColor in CSS style. E.g. 'coral'
• BracketHighlighter.textDecorationSymbol: Parameter is used for symbols only if separate highlighting for symbols and content is enabled: textDecoration in CSS style. E.g. 'underline'
• BracketHighlighter.activeInDebugMode: Enables the extension when debugging.
• BracketHighlighter.blurOutOfScopeText: Enables a blur effect on non-highlighted text. (Opacity depends on blurOpacity value)
• BracketHighlighter.blurOpacity: Sets the opacity of the blurred out text. E.g. 0.5
• BracketHighlighter.customSymbols: User defined symbols which have to have a defined "open" and "close" value. Open and close values must not be the same. Symbols don't have to be unique, however the first entry in this list will always have priority. E.g.

"BracketHighlighter.customSymbols": [
    {
        "open": "do",
        "close": "end"
    },
    {
        "open": "/*",
        "close": "*/"
    }
]

• BracketHighlighter.timeOutValue: Sets a value in milliseconds how often highlighting can be triggered. A higher value will increase performance when writing, however highlighting may be delayed in some cases. Setting this to 0 will make the extension behave as it did before this option existed.
• BracketHighlighter.ignoreContent: Ignores content in the scope and instead only highlights the enclosing symbols.
• BracketHighlighter.textColor: Sets the color of the highlighted text.

Hotkeys provided by extension

This extension provides several hotkeys to work with highlighted symbols.

• BracketHighlighter.toggleExtensionStatus: Enables/Disables the extension. (Default hotkey: Ctrl + Alt + L)
• BracketHighlighter.jumpOutOfClosingSymbol: Jumps to the outside of the closing symbol. (Default hotkey: Ctrl + Alt + DownArrow)
• BracketHighlighter.jumpOutOfOpeningSymbol: Jumps to the outside of the opening symbol. (Default hotkey: Ctrl + Alt + UpArrow)
• BracketHighlighter.jumpToClosingSymbol: Jumps to the inside of the closing symbol. (Default hotkey: Ctrl + Alt + RightArrow)
• BracketHighlighter.jumpToOpeningSymbol: Jumps to the inside of the opening symbol. (Default hotkey: Ctrl + Alt + LeftArrow)
• BracketHighlighter.selectTextInSymbols: Selects the whole text between (and not including) the symbols. (Default hotkey: Ctrl + Alt + K)

Refer to https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/ for all CSS options. Refer to https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/identifiers for available language identifiers. Refer to https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css_colors_legal.asp for possible color values.

Known Issues

High CPU usage can occur. This cannot be avoided, because the extension has to search through the text in a file. If it gets too bad, try increasing the timeOutValue and/or reduce the maxLineSearchCount.

Multiple ranges to highlight which share the same parent scope don't behave well with the blurring option enabled. This will likely not be fixed.

Release Notes

For all notes please refer to the changelog. Only the latest 3 releases will be shown here.

[2.3.1]

Fixed issue with text selection between symbols.

[2.3.0]

Added an option to have separate highlighting options for symbols and content.

[2.2.4]

If a symbol with no end symbol was included within a different symbol, nothing would get highlighted when trying to highlight from the scope of the symbols.
Example: { [ | }
Expected behavior: The cursor ("|") is placed within {}, therefore this should be highlighted, even though "[" is the closest symbol to the cursor

Planned improvements

• This extension is feature complete. If you think something is missing please refer to the next paragraph.

Feature requests and bug reports

Please mail them to me at dev@durzn.com or create an open issue at https://github.com/Durzn/BracketHighlighter Thanks to everyone reporting issues and requesting new features. The extension wouldn't be anywhere near where it currently is without these.

Special thanks

Art_of_bini

for the great extension icon. See more from her on her instagram page https://www.instagram.com/art_of_bini/

You

for using this extension :)

Support

I'm working on projects like this extension in my free time. If you want to buy me a coffee to keep me awake for more work on my projects, I'd greatly appreciate it.

I also gladly accept Cardano over this address: addr1qyz4hp9a5m844c5dn7nz56vget0lcx2lxg9eg02x9nyg82m7306tyvjqygl08grv79tm2jw0sh9lg8nr5u0g0qvf2nlsw376z4