About Syncfusion® Windows Forms Syntax Editor Control
18 Nov 20183 minutes to read
The Syntax Editor is a powerful text-editor control for creating interactive code-editor applications with a rich feature set. It includes editing, syntax highlighting, text indentation, IntelliSense, expand/collapse of code blocks, and custom language configuration similar to the Microsoft Visual Studio Editor.
Key features
Syntax highlighting - Provides built-in syntax highlighting and a code-editing experience for popular languages such as C, C#, Delphi, VB, SQL, XML, HTML, Java, VBScript, JScript, PowerShell, and plain text. It also offers fully configurable syntax highlighting for general text editing.
Custom language support - Supports user-defined language configurations. Custom language configurations can be created easily and applied to the content of the Syntax Editor.
Editing support - Allows end users to modify and edit text documents and source-code files. This includes clipboard support, unlimited undo and redo, drag and drop, block indent and outdent, and more.
Code outlining - Sections of code in the outlining blocks can be specified using configuration settings. The Syntax Editor defines different brackets for highlighting different languages.
Clipboard operations - Provides keyboard and programmatic support to Cut, Copy, and Paste.
Selection mode - Supports normal selection and rectangular block selection to select lines from specific columns, like the Microsoft Visual Studio text editor.
Change tracking - Provides extensive support to track the changed lines by displaying markers at the beginning of lines after the last file save operation.
Line number - Supports displaying line numbers at the start of the text.
Indentation support - Supports text indent and outdent options like the Microsoft Visual Studio text editor.
Word wrap - Supports wrapping text to the next line when it exceeds the control bounds.
Auto complete - Supports an AutoComplete option that predicts and appends the predefined data as the user types.
Auto correct - Supports an AutoCorrect option that automatically corrects misspellings and common typos.
Fully functional context menu - Provides a built-in context menu with options to perform editing operations such as Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Select All, and more. The Syntax Editor also contains options to enable or disable the built-in context menu.
Content dividers - Clearly distinguishes content sections with line dividers similar to Visual Basic to improve code readability.
IntelliSense - Provides IntelliSense pop-up capabilities to add content easily, like in the Microsoft Visual Studio code editor.
ToolTip - Provides interactive tooltip support that is built-in and appears automatically when the pointer is placed over a collapsed block of text.
Highlight line - Supports highlighting the current line with a customizable background color.
Underline - Provides support for formatting text by underlining with various built-in options such as solid, dash, wave, and dotted lines.
Text navigation - Provides extensive support for text navigation based on character, word, line, page, or entire document levels.
Bookmark and custom indicators - Supports Microsoft Visual Studio text editor-style bookmarks and custom indicators.
Search or Replace dialog - Provides built-in Find and Replace dialog windows to search and highlight the desired text and replace it, as in the Microsoft Visual Studio text editor.
Status bar - Provides a built-in status bar at the bottom of the control with different panels that display essential information. It helps to track line, column number, caret index, and more.
Shortcut keys - Provides shortcut key support for all editing and navigation operations.
Split view - Provides a view-splitting function to split a single document in the Syntax Editor into several views.
Single line mode - Supports single-line mode that is rendered just like a regular TextBox. This enables you to have a simple TextBox but with all the syntax highlighting, selection, IntelliPrompt, and other features that make Syntax Editor great for editing code.
File support - Supports file operations like Create New, Open, and Save.
Globalization and localization - Supports complete localization of all the dialogs and pre-defined text to any desired language.
Right to left - Supports laying out text in a right-to-left fashion, which allows the control to develop forms for worldwide audiences.
Print - Supports a Print option to print the loaded contents.
Export - Supports exporting contents to XML, RTF, and HTML formats.
Scrolling - Provides extremely smooth scrolling behavior even when large files are loaded in the Syntax Editor.