How can I highlight text in Scintilla?

Question

I am writing an editor using Scintilla.

I am already using a lexer to do automatic syntax highlighting but now I would like to mark search results. If I want to mark only one hit I can set the selection there, however, I would like to mark (e.g. with yellow background) all the hits.

I writing this in Perl but if you have suggestions in other languages that would be cool as well.

Answer 1

Have you read the Markers reference in Scintilla doc? This reference can be a bit obscure, so I advise to take a look at the source code of SciTE as well. This text editor was originally a testbed for Scintilla. It grown to a full fledged editor, but it is still a good implementation reference for all things Scintilla.

In our particular case, there is a Mark All button in the Find dialog. You can find its implementation in SciTEBase::MarkAll() method. This method only loops on search results (until it loops on the first search result, if any) and puts a bookmark on the found lines (and optionally set an indicator on the found items). The found line is gotten using SCI_LINEFROMPOSITION(posFound), the bookmark is just a call to SCI_MARKERADD(lineno, markerBookmark). Note that the mark can be symbol in a margin, or if not associated to a margin, it will highlight the whole line.

HTH.

Answer 2

The "sample" editor scite uses the bookmark feature to bookmark all the lines that match the search result.