Persistent Text Marker

A VS Code extension that permanently highlights all occurrences of selected text with your choice of marker colors via right-click menu.

Features

• Right-Click Menu: Select text, right-click, and choose from 8 different highlight colors
• Persistent Highlights: Highlights stay until you remove them (even after closing VS Code)
• Multiple Colors: Yellow, Green, Blue, Pink, Orange, Purple, Cyan, Red
• Custom Color Picker: Choose from 18 additional colors or enter your own RGBA/hex values
• Customizable Colors: Configure the preset colors via settings
• Whole Word Matching: Option to highlight only exact word matches (not substrings)
• Status Bar Indicator: Shows highlight count with quick access to manage highlights
• Works Across Files: Highlights are applied to all occurrences in your workspace
• Overview Ruler: Highlighted occurrences are shown in the editor's scrollbar for easy navigation

Usage

1. Select text in the editor
2. Right-click to open the context menu
3. Choose Highlight Text → pick a color (Yellow, Green, Blue, etc.)
4. All occurrences are now permanently highlighted!

To Remove Highlights

• Right-click → Remove Highlight (removes highlight for selected text)
• Right-click → Clear All Highlights (removes all highlights)
• Click the status bar → Select a highlight → Remove

Custom Colors

1. Select text → Right-click → Highlight Text → Custom Color...
2. Pick from the visual color palette (18 colors with emoji indicators)
3. Or select "Enter Custom RGBA..." to type your own color values

Whole Word Matching

When enabled, highlighting "enable" will NOT match "enabled" or "disable".

Toggle whole word matching:

• Click the status bar indicator → Select "Whole Word Matching"
• Or use Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) → "Toggle Whole Word Matching"
• Or set persistentTextMarker.wholeWordMatching in settings

Available Colors

Custom Color Palette

Additional colors available in Custom Color picker: 🟥 Bright Red, 🟧 Bright Orange, 🟨 Bright Yellow, 🟩 Bright Green, 🟦 Bright Blue, 🟪 Bright Purple, 🩷 Hot Pink, 🩵 Turquoise, 🤍 Light Gray, 🖤 Dark Gray, 🟤 Brown, 💚 Forest Green, 💙 Navy Blue, 💜 Indigo, 🧡 Coral, 💛 Gold, 🩶 Silver, ❤️ Crimson

Settings

Customizing Colors

Add to your settings.json:

"persistentTextMarker.colors": {
    "Yellow": { "background": "rgba(255, 255, 0, 0.5)", "border": "rgba(255, 200, 0, 1)" },
    "Green": { "background": "rgba(0, 200, 0, 0.4)", "border": "rgba(0, 150, 0, 0.9)" }
}

Commands

Status Bar

The extension shows a status bar item (bottom-right) displaying:

• Number of active highlights
• Total number of matches across all files

Click the status bar to:

• View all active highlights
• Toggle whole word matching
• Remove individual highlights
• Search for highlighted text in files

Known Issues

None at this time.

Release Notes

0.0.3

• Added custom color picker with 18 predefined colors
• Added whole word matching option
• Added status bar indicator with highlight management
• Added customizable colors via settings
• Added configuration change detection (live updates)

0.0.2

• Added extension icon
• Updated documentation

0.0.1

Initial release:

• Persistent text highlighting via right-click menu
• 8 color options: Yellow, Green, Blue, Pink, Orange, Purple, Cyan, Red
• Highlights persist across sessions
• Remove individual or all highlights