Using the editor when code has special characters

[JM]

I am wondering if anyone has solved my use case problem with the Ace editor.

I need the ability to show more than dots, red-dots, and the carriage return symbol. The text files have special invisible character such as vTab (ascii 11), Null (ascii 00) and then there is ascii 13 and 10 that I need to see in the editor and allow edits. Some characters indicate separators in batch processing in text files.

I am using  the editor option:

editor.setOption("showInvisibles", true)

The editor shows dots for spaces and tabs plus the new line character. Any character between 01 and 31 display as red dots which would indicate an error.

Has anyone found a way to make these invisible characters visible in the Ace editor without having to switch to a hex view?

I've considered using a special font to show symbols, but even a mono-spaced font throws the cursor off. I've tried using RegEx to replace these lower ASCII fonts with a higher UTF-8 font, but that confuses the find highlights and cursor. I'm guessing that there is a problem with multi-byte fonts.

I've considered creating my creating my own font but that could get me into trouble supporting international fonts.

Any ideas how to solve this issue would be appreciated.