Feature Requests

[krzyzanowskim]

If you're looking for a new feature, feel free to suggest it or vote for the one already proposed below!

(want to sponsor a new feature from the list or outside the list? contact me)

[krzyzanowskim]

Source Code highlighting support

Use tree-sitter parser-based parsers to highlight text content

[krzyzanowskim]

While it's fairly easy to add, it brings quite a bit of dependencies that are mostly a burden for just a TextView component. I'm thinking about the way to avoid requirement of the tree-sitter dependencies (make it optional)

[Mx-Iris]

Please consider making this optional. I'm using sourcekitd to implement syntax highlighting

[krzyzanowskim]

Recently I added Plugins to STTextView, and one of the first plugins is Plugin-Neon Syntax Highlighting. Plugins are optional, separate pieces that can be added to STTextView instance at will.

This is still in the early stage (need main branch of STTextView).

I encourage everyone interested in the feature to contribute to the plugin, especially in these areas:

• Documentation
• Theming/coloring
• Configure supported syntaxes
• Overall fixes and improvements

[krzyzanowskim]

Markers

visual line markers on the line number ruler (STLineNumberRulerView)

[krzyzanowskim]

Full multi-cursor editing support

There's already some support for that feature but it needs more work to feel complete. I found the VSCode approach appealing so that would be a reference (not necessarily how Xcode works)

The areas to improvement are:

• Visible multiple cursors
• Adding new cursors with the Option key (akin to VSCode) Shift + Control (akin to Xcode)

[nighthawk]

One of my main uses of multiple cursors is editing the same thing across its various occurrences in one go, using the "select next occurrence" option (Cmd+Opt+E in Xcode or Cmd+D in VSCode).

One thing that bugs me about Xcode there is that it doesn't handle the case well where the next occurrence is right after the first. VSCode handles it fine. Example:

You have the text https://github.com/krzyzanowskim/STTextView and you want to escape the forward slashes. You'd expect to select the first slash, then press the "select next occurrence" command, until all slashes are selected and then type left arrow and then backslash. This works in VSCode but doesn't work in Xcode. (On the first "select next occurrence" Xcode will not actually create two cursors both selecting a slash, but instead just has one selection selecting both slashes.) Xcode has the same issue if you want to un-escape https:\/\/github.com\/krzyzanowskim\/STTextView, too.

[chriseidhof]

Have you considered a markdown mode? This could also be a separate (paid?) component built on top of STTextView. I definitely had projects where I would have paid for this / sponsor this.

Also, is there support for custom text storages, and if yes, how does that work? I've had a niche need for this (I was trying to build a CRDT that records the exact edits so I could replay them later).

[krzyzanowskim]

Have you considered a markdown mode

Yes, however as of now I think about Markdown highlight via #14 (comment) that would look like this:

more advanced editing with in-place replacement of markup is possible, yet further on my priority as of today

[krzyzanowskim]

is there support for custom text storages

yes. and not out of the box

Yes because it can use any TextKit 2 storage.
Not out of the box as I rely on NSTextStorage for attributed string and content manipulation because that part is broken in TextKit 2 interface (FB9907261: NSTextElementProvider.replaceContents(in:with:) does not replace content as documented and FB9692714: Rendering attributes does not draw properly). If custom storage would provide these, then it very much could be used. I'd love to play with CRDT storage!

[iliasaz]

Would it be possible to expose the current selection as Binding<Range<String.Index>> over $text so that a SwiftUI wrapper view or MV can easily access it? It could also be used as the cursor position when the range start = end. For multi-cursor/multi-select use case, it could be a Binding<[Range<String.Index>]>.
Thanks!

[krzyzanowskim]

In 0.8.7 I exposed a version of selection binding (single selection) as Binding

Screen.Recording.2023-07-29.at.16.14.49.mov

[florianpircher]

Access “Spelling & Grammar” functionality using only the keyboard.

In most Mac apps, to correct a spelling mistake, the mouse pointer needs to be involved, either to bring up the context menu for the underlined word or to pick a correction option in the system “Spelling & Grammar” window.

The editor TextMate has a custom implementation where Edit → Spelling → Show Spelling and Grammar (bound to “⌘;”) selects the next misspelled word and opens a menu with items for replacement options as well as items for ignoring or learning the word. All of these options are also accessible using keyboard shortcuts.

Spelling.Grammar.in.TextMate.mp4

Being able to keep the hands on the keyboard while typing is very nice indeed, and others agree (The Talk Show: 312: ‘Not to Get Zealotrous’, With Craig Mod, 1:54:10–1:54:58).

[markmunz]

Show Invisibles option

NSTextView, via NSLayoutManager has an option for showsInvisibleCharacters, which would show whitespace and other "invisible" characters with special glyphs (and we you could tap into). Admittedly, OS substitutions weren't great, but you could tap into the layout manager to create invisibles that user would expect (dots for spaces, arrow for tabs, return etc).

As of macOS 14.0 NSTextLayoutManager (TextKit 2) is still missing that. And honestly, not even sure where to tap into in order to render the invisibles.

[krzyzanowskim]

I have one idea of how to do it. I just added STTextView.showsInvisibleCharacters (on main branch). It's not full-featured yet, as it only draws dot, but that's a start. If you want to fiddle with it, search for drawInvisibles

Screen.Recording.2023-08-07.at.01.47.50.mov

[austincondiff]

@krzyzanowskim You might check out our issue here. We are hoping to allow users to be able to control each type of invisible rendered (space, tab, new line, etc.), both the visibility of each and the character rendered. Great work so far!

• https://github.com/CodeEditApp/CodeEditTextView/issues/207

[bardigolriz]

Ability to have multiple dynamically expanding STTextViews vertically stacked together with one scrollbar

I would like the ability to have a vertical ScrollView whose contents are two or more STTextView:

1. Each STTextView would expand to fit so its contents is fully visible always (preferably with a minHeight).
2. As a result of 1), no STTextView has their own their scrollbar.
3. Instead the parent container ScrollView is exclusively responsible for handling scrolling.

At the moment, the following code:

   Form {
        STTextViewUI.TextView(
            text: $text,
            selection: $selection,
            options: [.wrapLines]
        ).textViewFont(.monospacedDigitSystemFont(ofSize: NSFont.systemFontSize, weight: .regular))
        
        STTextViewUI.TextView(
            text: $text2,
            selection: $selection2,
            options: [.wrapLines]
        ).textViewFont(.monospacedDigitSystemFont(ofSize: NSFont.systemFontSize, weight: .regular))
    }

Has the two controls vertically stacked taking up 50% of the view, and having individual scrollbars for each.

Admittedly, this may not be relevant for coding applications, which is possibly a primary use for STTextView, but the flexibility this could have broad appeal. To be clear, my personal use case is the ability to have a screen where you can create a thread of messages for social media (Mastodon). I’d like for the STTextView to have a minHeight of ~5 or so lines visible that expands if the content dictates. There’s a Button somewhere to add another message to the thread (View). Doing so, would append a STTextView below the previous last and so on.

For reference/comparison, the combination of ScrollView and TextEditor partially works but there are a few noteworthy issues.

1. there’s a flashing/flicker when you start a new line

2. when the caret starts a new line on the last visible line of window, it’s no longer in view

3. scrolling seems to make the last line of an expanded view to become scrolled out of view too

Screen.Recording.2024-02-22.at.10.16.35.am.mov

struct ContentView: View {
    
    @State var text: String = ""
    
    @State var text2: String = ""
    
    @State var text3: String = ""
    
    var body: some View {
        ScrollView(.vertical) {
            TextEditor(text: $text)
                .scrollDisabled(true)
                .fixedSize(horizontal: false, vertical: true)
            TextEditor(text: $text2)
                .scrollDisabled(true)
                .fixedSize(horizontal: false, vertical: true)
            TextEditor(text: $text3)
                .scrollDisabled(true)
                .fixedSize(horizontal: false, vertical: true)
        }
    }
}

Firstly, hope this is clear. Secondly, hope this is possible. Finally, hope this can be implemented (:

[ladvoc]

I see the Neon plug-in depends on tree-sitter-xcframework which bundles language support for twelve languages. Is it possible to add support for another language that is not covered by this package?

[krzyzanowskim]

yes. It’s changed now an multiple news languages has been added just recently

[HassanTaleb90]

Placeholder support

let <#name#> = <#value#>