JadeTextEdit Class

The JadeTextEdit control is a type of multiple-line TextBox control that allows the display and editing of text such as program source code. The underlying editor engine of the JadeTextEdit control is based on an Open Source project called Scintilla. For details about Scintilla and the Scintilla-based text editor SciTE, see http://scintilla.sourceforge.net/SciTEDoc.html or http://scintilla.sourceforge.net/ScintillaDoc.html.

As the JadeTextEdit class is a subclass of the Control class, it inherits all of the properties and methods defined in the Control and Window classes (for example, the fontBold, fontItalic, fontName, fontSize, fontUnderline, foreColor, backColor, borderStyle, enabled, height, left, top, visible, and width properties and the getRegisteredKeys and registerKeys methods defined in the Control and Window classes).

The JadeTextEdit control class provides the JadeEditor subclass.

For a summary of the constants, properties, methods, and events defined in the JadeTextEdit class, see "JadeTextEdit Class Constants", "JadeTextEdit Properties", "JadeTextEdit Methods", and "JadeTextEdit Events", in the following subsections. See also "Using the JadeTextEdit Control", later in this section.

The JadeTextEdit class provides you with:

Programming language-sensitive text coloring and styling
Programming language-sensitive text block folding
Linemarks, to bookmark specific lines in a text edit control as go-to points
Keystroke binding to editor actions, text insertion, or notification generation
Load and save text buffer contents in local files
Support for sharing the text buffer between multiple controls
Visible indent guides, whitespace, and ends of lines
Rectangular selection, by pressing the:
- Alt key when dragging the mouse
- Shift+Alt+ arrow keys
You can copy the rectangle selection area to the Windows or the JADE editor clipboard. Pasting the text in the clipboard adds the text at the selected position and starts a new line for lines 2 and greater.

You can also use this functionality to add tab characters into multiple lines, by pressing Shift+Alt+↓ to select the lines into which the tab characters are added (without selecting any characters) and then pressing Tab to enter tabs on each of the selected lines. Similarly, to remove tabs, press Shift+Alt+↓ to select the lines from which the tabs are removed (without selecting any characters) and then press Backspace, to move text back to the prior tab position.
If no text is selected and the cursor is over an identifier, all matching occurrences of that identifier (full‑word and case‑sensitive) are highlighted.

When text is selected, the result is determined by the value of the Only highlight whole words matching selection check box on the Editor Options sheet of the Preferences dialog. If the check box is:
- Unchecked (the default value), any other text matching the case‑sensitive selection is also highlighted using the Additional Selections color specified on the Editor sheet of the Preferences dialog (lime green, by default), unless the selection contains only space-type characters; for example, selecting the word to highlights any occurrence of to in the editor pane.
- Checked, any selection causes other text matching text in the editor pane to be highlighted if the selection is a full‑word identifier and there are other occurrences of that word in the editor pane. This match is case‑sensitive and full-word; for example, selecting the word caption highlights any other occurrence of the full word caption.
Parentheses (()) and bracket ([]) pairs are highlighted when editing a JADE method or schema file when the cursor is positioned before the starting or closing () parenthesis or [] bracket character, making it quicker to resolve the omission of the closing parenthesis or bracket.

The back ground of the two parentheses (()) and bracket ([]) bracket characters is colored using the Additional Selections value specified on the Editor sheet of the Preferences dialog. The default value is bright green. If the cursor is positioned before a parenthesis or bracket character that does not have a matching starting or closing bracket, the background of the character is highlighted in red. (There is no user preference available for this.)

The JadeTextEdit control uses between four and five times the size of the text contained in the control for memory buffer and tables. The maximum size of a file that you can load into the control by using the loadTextFromFile method is the smaller of 50M bytes or a tenth of the physical memory.

Although there is no limit on the maximum number of characters in one line of text, only the first 8190 characters are displayed. This limit also applies when wrapping is enabled. The remainder of the line can be edited and the caret (insertion point) can be moved into those areas so that new line characters can be inserted.

The following image shows some of the functionality available in text editor controls.

This image illustrates the following settings that have been defined in an application.

The current language is JADE. As text is styled using the JADE language settings, the color of words is determined by the type (for example, comments, keywords, numeric literals, global constants, and so on).

The example in this image uses the following code fragment.
```
language := SCLEX_JADE;
applySettings;
```
A wrapped line has a line number displayed in margin zero (0) only in the first line. Subsequent wrapped lines of the same line are indicated by optional indentation and visual markers, whose positioning you can specify (for example, before or after the wrapped text).

The example in this image uses the following code fragment.
```
wrapMode := SC_WRAP_WORD;
wrapIndent := 4;
wrapVisualFlags := SC_WRAPVISUALFLAG_END;
```
The linemarks in margin 1 serve as bookmarks in the current text editor.

You can bind editor commands to keystrokes that allow a user to toggle (set or reset) a linemark in the current line (for example, Ctrl+F7) or to move to the next linemark (for example, F7) or to the previous linemark (for example, Shift+F7).

The example in this image uses the following code fragment.
```
markerMargin := true;
setLinemarkAttributes(MARKER_JAD_LINEMARK, SC_MARK_ROUNDRECT, 
                      Black, LightGreen);
bindKeyToCommand(J_key_F7+KEYMOD_CTRL, SCI_TOGGLE_JADE_LINEMARK);
bindKeyToCommand(J_key_F7, SCI_GONEXT_JADE_LINEMARK);
bindKeyToCommand(J_key_F7+KEYMOD_SHIFT,SCI_GOPRIOR_JADE_LINEMARK);
```
Going to a linemark that contains folding on or following that line and before the next marked line expands any folded lines that were hidden (that is, folded).
Fold marks optionally displayed in margin 2 of the margin enable you to suppress the display of specific text editor lines (for example, if you want to hide the details of an if instruction), by:
- Clicking margin 2 within a fold mark to contract an expanded fold mark (that is, hide the display of lines)
- Clicking on a collapsed fold symbol to display all lines within that fold
- Going to a linemark whose following lines contain folds, to expand the folded lines.
  
  The example in this image uses the following code fragment.
```
folding := true;
foldFlags := 16;
foldSymbols := SC_FOLDSYM_TREESQUARE;
```
Whitespace is visible, spaces are indicated by the centered dots, and tabs by right-pointing arrows.

The example in this image uses the following code fragment.
```
viewWhitespace := SCWS_VISIBLEALWAYS;
viewEndOfLine := true;
```

The background color of margins, the edge mode line, selected text, background color, and the text edit control window can all be specified to meet your requirements.

The example in this image uses the following code fragment.

self.setStyleAttributes(STYLE_LINENUMBER, "", ATTRIB_NOCHANGE, 
                        ATTRIB_NOCHANGE, Purple, ATTRIB_NOCHANGE, 
                        ATTRIB_NOCHANGE, ATTRIB_NOCHANGE, ATTRIB_NOCHANGE);
setNamedAttribute("fold.margin.color", Pink);
selBackColor := LightBlue;

You can specify that lines that exceed a specified number of characters are visibly marked.

The example in this image, which uses the following code fragment, uses line mode where a vertical line is drawn after the specified column. The line is offset by the amount of wrap indentation when wrapping is enabled.
```
edgeMode := SC_EDGE_LINE;
edgeColumn := 65;
edgeColor := Black;
```
The debug breakpoint line is displayed using a linemark. The example in this image uses the following code fragment.
```
setLinemarkAttributes(MARKER_JAD_BREAKPOINT, SC_MARK_BACKGROUND, 
                      Yellow, Yellow);
```

For details about the function key and shortcut keys in the JADE editor pane, see "Using Function Keys and Shortcut Keys" under "Using the JADE Development Environment", in Chapter 2 of the JADE Development Environment User's Guide.