Comment Highlighter

IMPORTANT: If you have the old version of this extension installed Project Notes + TODO Highlighter it should be removed before installing this newer version. They are not compatible with each other and will cause issues if they are run simutaneously.

Note: This is a complete rewrite of my earlier version Project Notes + TODO Highlighter found here on VS Code Marketplace and on Github. The syntax highlighting was only intended to be a minor addition to the extension but it has grown to the point where it really needed be its own seperate extension. The new Project Notes extension without comment highlighting can now be found on VSCode Marketplace and on Github. Seperating the old extension into two extensions allows me to focus exclusivly on each of the new extensions as needed. The old extension will remain available for those that wish to use it but it will only receive limited support for bug fixes if they are discovered.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Screenshots
  • Highlight Tags Only
  • Highlight Tags To End of Line
  • Highlight Tag Blocks
  • Highlight Special Tags
  • Tag Browser Dark+ (Default)
  • Tag Browser Light+ (Default)
  • Tag Browser Emerald Sky (My Theme)
• Settings
• Commands
• The Tag Browser
• Changing the Default Tag Browser Colors
• Recommended
• Release Notes and Changelog

Features

• Adds syntax highlighting in comments to the default tags BUG, CHANGED, DEBUG, FIXME, HACK, IDEA, NOTE, OPTIMIZE, RESEARCH, REVIEW, TEMP and TODO
• Tags can be in single or multi-line commenmts
• Tags are case insensitive
• Tags without trailing colon highlight just the tag
• Tags with trailing colon highlight the entire line
• Tags browser to view all project files Tags in the Comment Highlighter panel and jump to tag on selection
• Tags browser displays the project files tag total tags count on the far right of the filename
• Tags browser User definable colors for all default tags
  • In your settings.json under the key "workbench.colorCustomizations" type "chTreeItem." to get a popup of all available colors
• New Tags can be added to the settings file
• All Tags can be enabled or disabled individually in the tag-settings.json file
• tag-settings.json settings file has accompanying JSON Schema to aid in creating and editing tags
• Highlighting of user definable Tag Blocks - Any text surrounded by user definable text characters
• Comment highlighting is based on the files extension allowing for highlighting in file languages unkown to VS Code
• Supported file extensions "asm", "ini", "c", "cc", "cp", "cs", "cpp", "c++", "cxx", "cppm", "ixx", "go", "java", "js", "jsx", "kt", "kts", "ktm", "less", "php", "scss", "swift", "ts", "tsx", "jsonc", "css", "coffee", "tbs", "bat", "cmd", "html", "vue", "md", "sql", "py", "rb", "rs", "rlib", "twig", "pl", "m", "mat", "bas", "cls", "r", "dpr", "pas"
• Supports Light and Dark Themes
• Snippets for the pre-defined tags and tag blocks
• Parentheses, brackets and Curly braces in comments are also highlighed. (Can be individually disabled in the settings file)
• Backticks, "Double Quotes" and 'Single Quotes' in comments are also highlighted. (Can be individually disabled in the settings file)

Screenshots

Highlight Tags Only

Dark+ (Default)	Light+ (Default)	Emerald Sky (My Theme)

Highlight Tags To End of Line

Dark+ (Default)	Light+ (Default)	Emerald Sky (My Theme)

Highlight Tag Blocks

Dark+ (Default)	Light+ (Default)	Emerald Sky (My Theme)

Highlight Special Tags

Dark+ (Default)	Light+ (Default)	Emerald Sky (My Theme)

Tag Browser Dark+ (Default)

Tag Browser Light+ (Default)

Tag Browser Emerald Sky (My Theme)

Settings

Note: This extension will search for tags in all files with a supported extension. The following two settings can be used to override this behavior.

• Files To Exclude An array of filenames to exclude from Comment Highlighter
• Folders To Exclude An array of folder names to exclude from Comment Highlighter

All this extensions tag settings are stored in the file tag-settings.json located in this extensions global storage folder. It uses its own file as it would be annoyingly too large for your settings.json file. It also has its own JSON Schema making adding and editing items much easier. To edit this file run the command Comment Highlighter: Edit Tags Settings File. To reset this file to its default settings run the command Comment Highlighter: Restore Tag Settings File. Be aware that this will remove any changes you have made!

Read TAG-SETTINGS.md for a more detailed description of the tag-settings.json file and its usage

Commands

These commands are availiable from the command pallette: (Windows: CTRL+Shift+P or F1) (Mac: CMD+Shift+P)

• Comment Highlighter: Edit Tags Settings File Opens tag-settings.json File for editing.

• Comment Highlighter: Restore Tag Settings File Restores tag-settings.json file to its default settings.

  • (Caution! This will remove all changes you have previously made!)

The Tag Browser

The tag browser panel displays a list of all project files with a supported extension that include any tag keywords. Selecting the file will display all the tag keywords within that file. Then selecting the displayed tags will open that file in the editor and jump to the location of the tag.

Example Screenshot...

Changing the Default Tag Browser Colors

You can override the default file colors in the settings.json file under the workbench.colorCustomizations key...

chTreeItem.filenameTextColor sets all filenames text color

chTreeItem.bugTextColor sets the BUG tags text color

chTreeItem.changedTextColor sets the CHANGED tags text color

chTreeItem.debugTextColor sets the DEBUG tags text color

chTreeItem.fixmeTextColor sets the FIXME tags text color

chTreeItem.ideaTextColor sets the IDEA tags text color

chTreeItem.noteTextColor sets the NOTE tags text color

chTreeItem.optimizeTextColor sets the OPTIMIZE tags text color

chTreeItem.researchTextColor sets the RESEARCH tags text color

chTreeItem.reviewTextColor sets the REVIEW tags text color

chTreeItem.tempTextColor sets the TEMP tags text color

chTreeItem.todoTextColor sets the TODO tags text color

chTreeItem.userTagTextColor sets all User Defined tags text color

Example Screenshot...

Recommended

The Project Notes extension which has project and global file links in comments which are supported by this extension.

The Emerald Sky dark theme which I created with this extension in mind.

Release Notes and Changelog

See the Release Notes for details on this released version or Changelog for a history of all changes.