Persistent Highlighter

A Visual Studio Code extension that allows you to permanently highlight text in your code.

Features

• Persistent Highlighting: Highlights are saved and will reappear when you reopen the file.
• Multiple Colors: Use a variety of colors to highlight different terms.
• 25 Built-in Colors: Choose from 25 carefully selected built-in colors.
• 18 Preset Colors: Quick access to 18 curated preset colors in the custom color picker.
• Custom Color Support: Use any hex color code for personalized highlighting.
• Color Selection UI: Easy-to-use color picker for both built-in and custom colors.
• Tree View Sidebar: Manage all your highlights in a dedicated sidebar view.
• Cross-Session Persistence: Highlights persist across VS Code sessions.
• Case Sensitive Matching: Optional case-sensitive search for highlights.
• Large File Optimization: Intelligent performance optimization for large files.
• Caching System: Efficient caching mechanism for improved performance.
• Easy to Use: Simple commands to add, remove, toggle, and manage highlights.

Commands

Core Commands

• Persistent Highlighter: Add Highlight: Adds a highlight to the selected text or the word under the cursor.
• Persistent Highlighter: Add Highlight with Custom Color: Adds a highlight with a custom color chosen from 25 built-in colors or a custom hex color.
• Persistent Highlighter: Remove Highlight: Removes a highlight from the selected text or the word under the cursor.
• Persistent Highlighter: Toggle Highlight: Toggles the highlight for the selected text or the word under the cursor.
• Persistent Highlighter: Clear All Highlights: Removes all highlights from all files.

Sidebar Commands

• Persistent Highlighter: Jump to Highlight: Navigate to a specific highlight in the current file.
• Persistent Highlighter: Edit Highlight: Modify the text of an existing highlight.
• Persistent Highlighter: Remove Highlight: Delete a highlight from the sidebar.
• Persistent Highlighter: Refresh: Refresh the highlights tree view.

Installation

1. Open Visual Studio Code.
2. Go to the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X).
3. Search for "Persistent Highlighter" and click "Install".
4. Reload Visual Studio Code.

Usage

Basic Usage

1. Select the text you want to highlight or place the cursor on a word.
2. Open the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P).
3. Run one of the Persistent Highlighter commands.

Custom Color Usage

1. Select the text you want to highlight.
2. Run Persistent Highlighter: Add Highlight with Custom Color.
3. Choose from 18 preset colors or select "Custom Color".
4. If choosing custom color, enter a hex color code (e.g., #FF5733).
5. The highlight will be applied with your chosen color.

Preset Colors: Coral, Turquoise, Sky Blue, Mint, Light Yellow, Plum, Seafoam, Golden, Lavender, Light Blue, Apricot, Light Green, Salmon, Light Purple, Pale Green, Peach, Pale Blue, Rose

Keyboard Shortcut

• Use Ctrl+Alt+T (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Option+T (macOS) to quickly toggle highlights.

Sidebar Management

1. Open the Explorer sidebar (Ctrl+Shift+E).
2. Find the "Highlights" section at the bottom.
3. Use the tree view to:
   • See all highlighted terms across all files
   • Jump to specific highlights
   • Edit highlight text
   • Remove individual highlights
   • Clear all highlights at once

Configuration

The extension provides several configuration options to customize behavior:

Performance Settings

• persistent-highlighter.enableLargeFileOptimization: Enable optimization for large files (default: true)
• persistent-highlighter.chunkSize: Chunk size in characters for large file processing (default: 50000)
• persistent-highlighter.maxFileSize: Maximum file size in characters before applying optimization (default: 1000000)
• persistent-highlighter.visibleRangeBuffer: Number of lines to buffer around visible range for large files (default: 100)

Search Settings

• persistent-highlighter.caseSensitive: Enable case-sensitive matching for highlights (default: false)

To modify these settings, go to VS Code Settings and search for "Persistent Highlighter".

Recent Updates

Version 0.0.5

• Added intelligent caching system for improved performance
• Implemented large file optimization with configurable chunk processing
• Added case-sensitive matching option
• Enhanced custom color picker with 18 preset colors
• Improved sidebar tree view with better highlight management
• Added incremental document change processing

Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js (version 16 or higher)
• Visual Studio Code
• TypeScript

Development Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/jsfaint/persistent-highlighter.git
cd persistent-highlighter

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Compile TypeScript
npm run compile

# Run in development mode (watch)
npm run watch

# Run tests
npm test

# Package extension
vsce package

Architecture

The extension uses a comprehensive architecture with:

• HighlightManager class: Central manager for all highlighting operations with caching support
• HighlightsTreeProvider class: Manages the sidebar tree view for highlight management
• VS Code API integration: Uses TextEditorDecorationType for rendering highlights
• State persistence: Uses globalState to store highlights across sessions
• Event-driven updates: Listens to document changes, active editor changes, and configuration changes
• Performance optimization: Intelligent caching and large file handling
• Custom color management: Dynamic decoration type creation for custom colors
• Incremental updates: Efficient processing of document changes without full re-rendering