Sphere Scripter
Language support for Sphere script files (.scp) in Visual Studio Code:
highlighting, formatting, and static checks for the mistakes the engine accepts
without a word.
What it does
Syntax highlighting for 52 section kinds, 258 triggers, and the property and
function catalogs of every scriptable class.
Formatting. Block indentation, keyword casing, and blank-line separation
between sections and trigger handlers. Book pages, [COMMENT] prose, [NAMES]
tables and [DIALOG … TEXT] gump strings are emitted verbatim — what a player
reads is never rewritten. Format a selection with range formatting, or the whole
file.
Static checks. Five rules, each for a failure that loads clean and then
quietly does the wrong thing:
| Check |
What it catches |
cmpsub |
A > inside a <...> read closes it. <EVAL (5 > 3)> answers 5 and the rest of the line stops being script, so the gate is always open. |
hex0x |
A C-style 0x literal reads as 0; Sphere writes hex with a leading zero. |
flow |
An IF/FOR/WHILE/BEGIN that is never closed. |
locals |
A LOCAL read but never set. It reads back as "0" and nothing is logged, so a mistyped name silently disables whatever it guards. |
itemev |
An item-only trigger in an [EVENTS] block — indexed against the character trigger table, so it attaches and never fires. It has to be a [TYPEDEF]. |
Editor support. Completion for triggers, sections and the names your pack
defines; hover on a trigger for what SRC is, which ARGN/ARGO it carries and
what RETURN 1 does; go to definition for any DEFNAME across the workspace;
an outline and folding for sections and their handlers; and 70 snippets.
Settings
| Setting |
Default |
|
sphereScripter.format.triggerCase |
canonical |
How ON=@... is cased: canonical (@DClick), upper (@DCLICK) or preserve. |
sphereScripter.diagnostics.enabled |
true |
Turn the static checks off entirely. |
sphereScripter.diagnostics.disabledChecks |
[] |
Silence individual checks by id. |
The first format of an existing pack rewrites nearly every ON=@ line to the
catalog's spelling. Set triggerCase to preserve or upper first if you
would rather it left them alone.
Contributing
The keyword catalogs live in formatter/constants.js
and nowhere else. The grammar's trigger, section and flow patterns and the
language configuration's indentation rules are generated from them:
npm run sync:language # regenerate
npm run lint # eslint, plus a check that the generated files are current
npm run test:unit # the rules, over a vscode stub — runs anywhere
npm test # the integration suite; needs a real VS Code and a display
Editing the grammar's generated patterns by hand is how the two copies drifted
to 158 and 235 triggers, and how [DEFNAME] went uncoloured for years.
Thanks
This extension is based on:
https://github.com/ruben-feito/spherescript-syntax-highlight-formatter
