Text Highlighter for VSCode

Highlight what matters. Instantly spot TODOs, critical errors, and custom patterns in your code.

Why Text Highlighter?

Stop scanning through thousands of lines of code to find that one NOTE or FIXME. Text Highlighter lets you define custom rules to make important text pop out.

🎯 Never miss a TODO: Make them bright red, neon green, or whatever catches your eye.
🔍 Regex Power: Highlight complex patterns like email addresses, error codes, or specific variable naming conventions.
🚦 Instant Feedback: See matches in your Problems tab so you can navigate to them instantly.
🎨 Fully Customizable: Control background colors, text colors, and even add custom messages.

Features

Multi-Pattern Highlighting: Define unlimited rules with unique colors.
Problem Tab Integration: Matches appear as Errors, Warnings, Info, or Hints.
Case-Insensitive Matching: By default (configurable).
Performance Focused: Optimized for large files.

Quick Start

Add this to your settings.json to get started immediately:

"textHighlighter.rules": [
  {
    "pattern": "TODO",
    "backgroundColor": "yellow",
    "problemMessage": "TODO item found",
    "severity": "warning",
    "languages": ["*"]
  },
  {
    "pattern": "FIXME",
    "backgroundColor": "darkblue",
    "color": "rgba(255, 255, 0, 0.3)",
    "severity": "error",
    "languages": ["*.md", "*.txt"],
    "isRegex": true
  },
  {
    "pattern": "^.{73,}$",
    "backgroundColor": "#FF000050",
    "problemMessage": "Line exceeds 72 characters",
    "severity": "error",
    "isRegex": true,
    "languages": ["plaintext"]
  }
]

Configuration Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
`pattern`	string	Yes	-	Text or regex pattern to match
`languages`	array	Yes	-	Language IDs (e.g., `"python"`) or file patterns (e.g., `"*.md"`)
`backgroundColor`	string	No	`"rgba(255, 255, 0, 0.3)"`	CSS background color. You can use, e.g. `red`, `darkblue`
`color`	string	No	undefined	CSS text color (leave empty to preserve syntax highlighting)
`problemMessage`	string	No	`"Pattern match: {pattern}"`	Custom message for Problems tab
`severity`	string	No	`"error"`	Diagnostic severity: `error`, `warning`, `information`, or `hint`
`isRegex`	boolean	No	`false`	Treat pattern as regular expression

Note: All pattern matching is case-sensitive.

Regex Tips:

Use ^ and $ for line anchors (multiline mode is enabled)
For lines longer than 72 chars: ^.{73,}$
For matching at start of line: ^pattern

Found Bugs or Want to Contribute?

Head to https://github.com/tobiasorth1/text-highlighter/issues and report your problems as issue. Please describe your workflow and document what is not working. Or fix the problem yourself and open a PR.

Development Instructions

Prerequisites

Node.js
VSCode

Setup

Clone the repository.
Run npm install to install dependencies.

Running the Extension

Open the project in VSCode.
Press F5 to start debugging. This will open a new "Extension Development Host" window.
In the new window, open a file and test the highlighting.

Running Tests

Run npm test to run the automated tests.
Run npm run test:compatibility to run compatibility tests with other extensions.

Text Highlighter

Tobias Orth