gtksourceview (gedit and other GTK editors)

To install in your home, just link (or copy) the language definition file in ~/.local/share/gtksourceview-2.0/language-specs

syntaxhighlighter

Nit brush for the Alex Gorbatchev's JS syntaxhighlighter.

To install the JS syntaxhighlighter, please refer to http://alexgorbatchev.com/SyntaxHighlighter/

Then can add the brush to your html page:

<script type="text/javascript" src="shBrushNit.js"></script>

Vim

Vim is a powerful text editor and a favorite of the Nit team. The misc/vim directory provides Vim support for Nit source files.

Install

The simpler way to install nit for vim is with pathogen.

cd ~/.vim/bundle
ln -s /full/path/to/nit/misc/vim nit

Ensure that ~/.vimrc contains

call pathogen#infect()
syntax on
filetype plugin indent on

Features

• Syntax highlighting
• Automatic indentation
• Syntax checker (require Syntastic).
• Autocomplete for whole projects using module importations
• Show documentation in preview window
• Search declarations and usages of the word under the cursor

Autocomplete

The Nit plugin offers two kinds of autocompletion: complete and omnifunc.

You can use both completion at the same time. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Complete

The Nit plugin can configure the complete option by scanning all projects in the current directory, and their dependencies.

Add the following code to ~/.vimrc, then use ctrl-n to open the autocomplete popup.

" Compute Nit module dependencies for autocomplete on loading our first Nit module
autocmd Filetype nit call NitComplete()

" Map reloading Nit module dependencies to F2
map <F2> :call ForceNitComplete()<enter>

The plugin is compatible with, and optimized for, AutoComplPop.

Look at the functions defined in misc/vim/plugin/nit.vim for all possible usages.

Omnifunc

The Nit plugin also defines an omnifunc which uses metadata files produced by nitpick which is called by syntastic. It is activated by default when editing a Nit source file, launch it using ctrl-x ctrl-o. It will suggest entities names from the current context and display the corresponding documentation. Once the correct completion has been selected, you can close the documentation preview window with :pc.

The omnifunc applies a simple heuristic to recognize what kind of entities to display: (This is a simplification some behaviors are missing.)

• If the cursor follows import, it will list known modules.
• If it follows new it will list known classes with their constructors.
• If it follows super, class, isa or as it will list known classes.
• If it follows a ., it will list properties.
• If on an extern method declaration, it will list classes and properties.
• Otherwise, it will list keywords and properties.

Make sure to save your Nit module if using syntastic or to manually call nitpick the generate the metadata files before using the omnifunc. If there is no locally available metadata, it will use general metadata in the plugin directory.

The metadata files from nitpick are stored in ~/.vim/nit/. This location can be customized with the environment variable NIT_VIM_DIR.

Documentation in preview window

The command :Nitdoc searches the documentation for the word under the cursor. The results are displayed in the preview window in order of relevance. You can search for any word by passing it as an argument, as in :Nitdoc modulo. The Nitdoc command uses the same metadata files as the omnifunc. You may want to map the command to a shortcut by adding the following code to ~/.vimrc.

" Map displaying Nitdoc to Ctrl-D
map <C-d> :Nitdoc<enter>

Search declarations and usages of the word under the cursor

The function NitGitGrep calls git grep to find declarations and usages of the word under the cursor. It displays the results in the preview window. You may want to map the function to a shortcut by adding the following code to ~/.vimrc.

" Map the NitGitGrep function to Ctrl-G
map <C-g> :call NitGitGrep()<enter>

Execute the current file

The command :NitExecute calls nit to interpret the current file.

If modified, the current buffer is saved to a temporary file before being executed. This may cause failures if the current buffer imports modules relative to the source package. In such cases, save the file before calling :NitExecute.

You may want to map the command to a shortcut by adding the following code to ~/.vimrc.

" Map the NitExecute function to Ctrl-F
map <C-f> :NitExecute<enter>

Test case for syntax highlighting

To check the accuracy of language definition files, the module ../tests/test_syntax.nit can be used as a demo.