X-Git-Url: http://git.vanrenterghem.biz/git.ikiwiki.info.git/blobdiff_plain/a4ddf1e5041ac76e57fb61df687217b491c32e75..f24e1e0727d42291e3c625a73f4491ff717b44cc:/doc/todo/syntax_highlighting.mdwn diff --git a/doc/todo/syntax_highlighting.mdwn b/doc/todo/syntax_highlighting.mdwn index fec3f963f..3d122829b 100644 --- a/doc/todo/syntax_highlighting.mdwn +++ b/doc/todo/syntax_highlighting.mdwn @@ -1,43 +1,82 @@ There's been a lot of work on contrib syntax highlighting plugins. One should be picked and added to ikiwiki core. -Ideally, it should support both converting whole source files into wiki +We want to support both converting whole source files into wiki pages, as well as doing syntax highlighting as a preprocessor directive -(which is either passed the text, or reads it from a file). +(which is either passed the text, or reads it from a file). But, +the [[ikiwiki/directive/format]] directive makes this easy enough to +do if the plugin only supports whole source files. So, syntax plugins +do no really need their own preprocessor directive, unless it makes +things easier for the user. -The big list of possibilities: +## The big list of possibilities -* [[plugins/contrib/highlightcode]] uses [[cpan Syntax::Highlight::Engine::Kate]], +* [[plugins/contrib/highlightcode]] uses [[!cpan Syntax::Highlight::Engine::Kate]], operates on whole source files only, has a few bugs (see [here](http://u32.net/Highlight_Code_Plugin/), and needs to be updated to - support [[bugs/multiple_pages_with_same_name]]. -* [[cpan IkiWiki-Plugin-syntax]] only operates as a directive. + support [[bugs/multiple_pages_with_same_name]]. (Currently a 404 :-( ) +* [[!cpan IkiWiki-Plugin-syntax]] only operates as a directive. Interestingly, it supports multiple highlighting backends, including Kate and Vim. * [[plugins/contrib/syntax]] only operates as a directive ([[not_on_source_code_files|automatic_use_of_syntax_plugin_on_source_code_files]]), - and uses [[cpan Text::VimColor]]. -* [[plugins/contrib/sourcehighlight]] uses src-highlight, and operates on + and uses [[!cpan Text::VimColor]]. +* [[plugins/contrib/sourcehighlight]] uses source-highlight, and operates on whole source files only. Needs to be updated to support [[bugs/multiple_pages_with_same_name]]. * [[sourcecode|todo/automatic_use_of_syntax_plugin_on_source_code_files/discussion]] - also uses src-highlight, and operates on whole source files. - Has problems with [[bugs/multiple_pages_with_same_name]]. + also uses source-highlight, and operates on whole source files. + Updated to work with the fix for [[bugs/multiple_pages_with_same_name]]. Untested with files with no extension, e.g. `Makefile`. +* [[users/jasonblevins]]'s code plugin uses source-highlight, and supports both + whole file and directive use. + +* [hlsimple](http://pivot.cs.unb.ca/git/?p=ikiplugins.git;a=blob_plain;f=IkiWiki/Plugin/hlsimple.pm;hb=HEAD) is a wrapper for the the perl module [[!cpan Syntax::Highlight::Engine::Simple]]. This is pure perl, pretty simple, uses css. It ought to be pretty fast (according to the author, and just because it is not external). +On the other hand, there are not many predefined languages yet. Defining language syntaxes is about as much +work as source-highlight, but in perl. I plan to package the base module for debian. Perhaps after the author +releases the 5 or 6 language definitions he has running on his web site, it might be suitable for inclusion in ikiwiki. [[DavidBremner]] + +* [[plugins/highlight]] uses [highlight](http://www.andre-simon.de) via + its swig bindings. It optionally supports whole files, but also + integrates with the format directive to allow formatting of *any* of + highlight's supported formats. (For whole files, it uses either + keepextension or noextension, as appropriate for the type of file.) + +## General problems / requirements + +* Using non-perl syntax highlighting backends is slower. All things equal, + I'd prefer either using a perl module, or a multiple-backend solution that + can use a perl module as one option. (Or, if there's a great highlighter + python module, we could use an external plugin..) + + Of course, some perl modules are also rather slow.. Kate, for example + can only process about 33 lines of C code, or 14 lines of + debian/changelog per second. That's **30 times slower than markdown**! -General problems: + By comparison, source-highlight can do about 5000 lines of C code per + second... And launching the program 100 times on an empty file takes about + 5 seconds, which isn't bad. And, it has a C++ library, which it + seems likely perl bindings could be written for, to eliminate + even that overhead. + > [highlight](http://www.andre-simon.de) has similar features to source-highlight, and swig bindings + > that should make it trivial in principle to call from perl. I like highlight a bit better because + > it has a pass-through feature that I find very useful. My memory is unfortunately a bit fuzzy as to how + > well the swig bindings work. [[DavidBremner]] -* Using non-perl syntax highlighting backends is slow. I'd prefer either - using a perl module, or a multiple-backend solution that can use a perl - module as one option. (Or, if there's a great highlighter python module, - we could use an external plugin..) -* Currently no single plugin supports both modes of operation (directive - and whole source file to page). +* Engines that already support a wide variety of file types are of + course preferred. If the engine doesn't support a particular type + of file, it could fall back to doing something simple like + adding line numbers. (IkiWiki-Plugin-syntax does this.) +* XHTML output. +* Emitting html that uses CSS to control the display is preferred, + since it allows for easy user customization. (Engine::Simple does + this; Kate can be configured to do it; source-highlight can be + made to do it via the switches `--css /dev/null --no-doc`) * Nothing seems to support [[wiki-formatted_comments|wiki-formatted_comments_with_syntax_plugin]] inside source files. Doing this probably means post-processing the results of the highlighting engine, to find places where it's highlighted comments, and then running them through the ikiwiki rendering pipeline. - This seems fairly doable with [[cpan Syntax::Highlight::Engine::Kate]], + This seems fairly doable with [[!cpan Syntax::Highlight::Engine::Kate]], at least. * The whole-file plugins tend to have a problem that things that look like wikilinks in the source code get munged into links by ikiwiki, which can @@ -45,18 +84,37 @@ General problems: One approach that's also been requested for eg, [[plugins/contrib/mediawiki]] is to allow controlling which linkification types a page type can have on it. + + > The previous two points seem to be related. One thought: instead of + > getting the source from the `content` parameter, the plugin could + > re-load the page source. That would stop directives/links from + > being processed in the source. As noted above, comments + > could then be parsed for directives/links later. + > + > Would it be worth adding a `nodirectives` option when registering + > an htmlize hook that switches off directive and link processing before + > generating the html for a page? + * The whole-file plugins all get confused if there is a `foo.c` and a `foo.h`. This is trivially fixable now by passing the keepextension option when - registering the htmlize hooks, though. + registering the htmlize hooks, though. There's also a noextension option + that should handle the + case of source files with names that do not contain an extension (ie, + "Makefile") -- in this case you just register the while filename + in the htmlize hook. * Whole-file plugins register a bunch of htmlize hooks. The wacky thing about it is that, when creating a new page, you can then pick "c" or - "h" or "pl" etc from the dropdown that normally has "mdwn" etc in it. - Is this a bug, or a feature? (Even if a feature, plugins with many - extensions make the dropdown unusable.. One way to deal with that is have - a config setting that lists what extensions to offer highlighting for. - Most people won't need/want the dozens some engines support.) -* The per page highlighters can't handle creating wiki pages from - "Makefile", or other files without a significant extension. - Not clear how to fix this, as ikiwiki is very oriented toward file - extensions. The workaround is to use a directive on a wiki page, pulling - in the Makefile. + "h" or "pl" etc from the dropdown that normally has "Markdown" etc in it. + Is this a bug, or a feature? Even if a feature, plugins with many + extensions make the dropdown unusable.. + + Perhaps the thing to do here is to use the new `longname` parameter to + the format hook, to give them all names that will group together at or + near the end of the list. Ie: "Syntax: perl", "Source code: c", etc. + +--- + +I'm calling this [[done]] since I added the [[plugins/highlight]] +plugin. There are some unresolved issues touched on here, +but they either have the own other bug reports, or are documented +as semi-features in the docs to the plugin. --[[Joey]]