Found text is hard to read

[Andrew Truckle]

I am using the default XML lexer with the SciTE colour scheme for syntax highlighting.

And, my editor supports Find / Find Next etc. That functionality is fine it itself.

The problem is when it highlights found text. Eg:

It is not readable. How can we adjust things so that the highlighted text is always readable for the user?

Thank you.

[Neil Hodgson]

Andrew Truckle:

> It is not readable. How can we adjust things so that the highlighted text is always readable for the user?

You should look at selection styling options starting with
https://www.scintilla.org/ScintillaDoc.html#CaretAndSelectionStyles

Neil

[Andrew Truckle]

Thanks for the link to those properties. My concern is that I am rubbish with colours. And it doesn't help with being colourblind. So I was hoping to find one-fits-all solution that would just work for everyone, whatever syntax highlighter is active, no matter what text colour is present.

But I appreciate being made aware of those properties.

[marc]

In my project, I make all selection colours the same...

https://github.com/jscript-panel/UI/blob/bf4554c9f781280842175701bb8210dcba4b3dee/Scintilla/Scintilla.cpp#L758-L762

[Neil Hodgson]

Andrew Truckle:

> So I was hoping to find one-fits-all solution that would just work for everyone, whatever syntax highlighter is active, no matter what text colour is present.

A fixed selection colour won't work well with varying background colours, such as when there is a choice between light and dark themes. Mid-scale backgrounds like grey are even harder to find a good matching selection colour.

Neil

[Andrew Truckle]

Neil

Thanks for explanation.

Marc

Thanks for suggestion. Sounds sensible. Will investigate!

[Tom Doan]

According to the docs:

SCI_FORMATRANGE can be used to draw the text onto a display surface which can include a printer display surface. Printed output shows text styling as on the screen, but it hides all margins except a line number margin. Markers do not appear in a margin but will change line background colour. The selection and caret are hidden.

Is there a reason that you can't (optionally) hide the line numbers? I couldn't see any setting that would suppress those.

Tom Doan

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[Andrew Truckle]

@marc

I have now added the following code (using your linked repository as a guide):

auto ConvertColorRefToColorAlpha = [](COLORREF color, uint8_t alpha = 255) -> uint32_t {
// Extract RGB components from the COLORREF value
const uint8_t red = GetRValue(color);
const uint8_t green = GetGValue(color);
const uint8_t blue = GetBValue(color);

// Combine into ARGB format
const uint32_t coloralpha = (alpha << 24) | (blue << 16) | (green << 8) | red;
return coloralpha;
};

// Retrieve the system highlight color
const auto highlightColor = ConvertColorRefToColorAlpha(::GetSysColor(COLOR_HIGHLIGHT));
// Retrieve the system highlight text color
const auto highlightTextColor = ConvertColorRefToColorAlpha(::GetSysColor(COLOR_HIGHLIGHTTEXT));

m_edit.SetSelectionLayer(Scintilla::Layer::UnderText);
m_edit.SetElementColour(Scintilla::Element::SelectionText, highlightTextColor);
m_edit.SetElementColour(Scintilla::Element::SelectionBack, highlightColor);
m_edit.SetElementColour(Scintilla::Element::SelectionAdditionalBack, highlightColor);
m_edit.SetElementColour(Scintilla::Element::SelectionSecondaryBack, highlightColor);
m_edit.SetElementColour(Scintilla::Element::SelectionInactiveBack, highlightColor);

This does appear better:

But, I am still not sure about the way I have used highlightTextColor.

[Andrew Truckle]

@marc

Do you also set these colours?

SC_ELEMENT_SELECTION_SECONDARY_TEXT : colouralpha

SC_ELEMENT_SELECTION_INACTIVE_TEXT : colouralpha

?

[Neil Hodgson]

Tom Doan:

> Is there a reason that you can't (optionally) hide the line numbers? I couldn't see any setting that would suppress those.

Temporarily turn the line number margin into another type while printing as other types aren't printed. Or make it 0-width while printing.

Neil