Syntax-highlighting textbox for Winforms, ASP.NET, WPF

Question

I'm looking for a syntax-highlighting Textbox component, preferably free, with source, and capable of being used in Winforms, ASP.NET and WPF alike. Also, it should support not just display, but also editing contents.

I've discovered the excellent, FREE ActiPro SyntaxHighlighter for ASP.NET but that's unfortunately ONLY for ASP.NET and it only displays text in syntax highlighted manner, it has no editing capabilities.....

I also know of the ICSharp Text Editor component that's part of SharpDevelop but that's then a standalone, but Winforms only, solution.

Does anyone know of a component that has a core to handle the syntax-highlighting (configurable, so I can use it for C# code, XML and HTML files, and more), and that has three "skins" for Winforms, ASP.NET and WPF? I'd really prefer to have ONE core that does the heavy lifting, and three UIs on top sharing that core code....

Any pointers and hints are welcome!

score 7 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:09

7

I'm with you marc: I'd love to see an extensible syntax highlighting framework that could generate a tokenized "document" object which could then be displayed via controls for each display framework. This way the parser/tokenizer could be written once!

The best I can say is that this thread suggests that ActiProSoftware is working on a WPF control for their syntax highlighter.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:09

Community

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answered Apr 03 '09 at 03:50

Jaykul

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p.campbell · Answer 2 · 2010-11-28T19:46:07.470

Perhaps consider CodeMirror items for the web. Obviously this won't work for WPF as you'd asked, but it'll work for any web framework - Webforms, ASP.NET MVC, plain HTML, PHP and others.

CodeMirror is a JavaScript library that can be used to create a relatively pleasant editor interface for code-like content ― computer programs, HTML markup, and similar. If a parser has been written for the language you are editing (see below for a list of supported languages), the code will be coloured, and the editor will help you with indentation.

Parsers for :

JavaScript
XML/HTML
CSS
HTML mixed-mode
SPARQL
HTML+PHP mixed-mode
Python
Lua
Ruby
SQL
PLSQL
diff
Groovy
C#
Scheme
Java
XQuery
OmetaJS
Freemarker

Implementation:

<textarea  rows="30" cols="120" id="someCode" >
    //some comments
    var foo = "bar";
</textarea>

You include 2 .js references, and then this bit of JavaScript replaces your textarea elements with new syntax highlighted elements.

<script type="text/javascript">
    var textarea = document.getElementById('someCode');
    var editor = new MirrorFrame(CodeMirror.replace(textarea), {
        height: "350px",
        content: textarea.value,
        parserfile: ["tokenizejavascript.js", "parsejavascript.js"],
        stylesheet: "css/jscolors.css",
        path: "js/",
        autoMatchParens: true
    });
</script>

The CodeMirror manual helps.

Also consider the WikiPedia entry for Comparison of JavaScript-based source code editors

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 18 '09 at 01:39

2

All those platforms are completely different and each have their own rendering display methods. So there won't be any universal control that does all. Each platform will have a separate control

However, one can implement a web control and use it in a page. Then a browser object in winforms or wpf can use the page address to display it

answered Feb 18 '09 at 01:39

Codingday

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Oh,I totally understand the *rendering* part can't be the same for all - but all the other stuff, like the rules, which parts to highlight with what color, and detecting keywords etc., all could be shared..... – marc_s Feb 18 '09 at 14:45

Syntax-highlighting textbox for Winforms, ASP.NET, WPF

3 Answers3

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