ATS2 language support and integration

Language support for GTKSourceView and integration in FreeDesktop environements.

Installation on Linux environments

Not all parts are mandatory, so you may proceed with the only one you want, as much as with all of the ones. Available parts are:

• ATS2 Language definition
• ATS(2) source file MIME type
• ATS(2) source file MIME type icon
• A variant of the Solarized Dark theme as a bonus

The Linux environment is supposed to honnour the Freedesktop standard and to come with the GtkSourceView functionnalities (not standard).

The installation is a per‑user installation, as one should avoid trickering in the system directories (to avoid interference with packages management).

Installing the language definition

This will provide syntax colourization in GtkSourceView based editors (ex. Gedit or Medit or Anjuta, are exemples of such).

• Close any opened GtkSourceView based editor.
• Check the directory $HOME/.local/share/gtksourceview-3.0/language-specs/ exists. If it don't, create it. Copy the file ats.lang into your $HOME/.local/share/gtksourceview-3.0/language-specs/.
• Open an ATS source file in your favorite GtkSourceView based editor and check the language colourization is applied.

Hint: Medit (also known as MooEdit) uses its own language definitions directory: $HOME/.local/share/medit-1/language-specs/. You will probably have to copy the file there too if you use this editor.

Hint: the language ID is ats, although the language defined is ATS2.

Installing the MIME type

This will make your file browser aware of ATS(2) source files type.

• Check the directory $HOME/.local/share/mime/packages exists. If it don't, create it. Copy the file ats.xml into your $HOME/.local/share/mime/packages.
• Do either one of these:
  • From a command shell, execute update-mime-database ~/.local/share/mime
  • Logout from and login back to your GUI session.
• Open your favourite Freedesktop aware file browser (ex. Nautilus, as an exemple), right‑click (or whatever else) on an ATS source file, and in the relevant property tab, check the MIME type is text/x-ats and/or the file type's description is “ATS program source” (or its available translation).

Hint: to have ATS source files associated to a MIME type, allows you to associate your editor of favour for this kind of file, or any other custom application.

Installing the MIME type icon

This will make your file browser and various other application, display ATS source files with the proper icon, ex. in file browser pane of editor tab.

• Check the directory $HOME/.icons exists. If it don't, create it.
• Check if there is a or are theme folder(s) in the directory.
• If there are theme folders, then copy ats.svg in each of the scalable subdirectory of these theme folders. If there are no theme folders, then copy ats.svg right in $HOME/.icons. CHECKME: could this be an option to always copy ats.svg right in $HOME/.icons even if there are specific theme folders?
• Do either one of these:
  • From a command shell, execute update-icon-caches ~/.icons, the close and re‑open any application displaying files as icons in one way or another.
  • Logout from and login back to your GUI session.
• Open your favourite Freedesktop aware file browser (ex. Nautilus, as an exemple), get into any directory containing ATS source files, and check these source files shows with the nice ATS icon.

Installing the bonus Solarized Dark theme variant

This will provide you a slightly modified Solarized Dark color scheme for GtkSourceView editors, named Solarized Dark Alternate.

• Close any opened GtkSourceView based editor (ex. Gedit or Medit or Anjuta, are exemples of such)
• Check the directory $HOME/.local/share/gtksourceview-3.0/styles/ exists. If it don't, create it. Copy the file solarized-dark-alt.xml into your $HOME/.local/share/gtksourceview-3.0/styles/.
• Open any source file in your favorite GtkSourceView based editor, and check the alternative theme is available.

Hint: Medit (also known as MooEdit) uses its own style directory: $HOME/.local/share/medit-1/language-specs/ (yes, the same as that of language files). You will probably have to copy the file there too if you use this editor.

The reasons why the modifications to the Solarized Dark theme, and which ones, were made and why it may be good (or not) to you, are explained in the file solarized-dark-alt.xml it‑self.

Usage notes

Triggering colorization for extern blocks

An extern block (any the three forms) may get proper colorization, if it's preceded by a language tag, in the form of a comment.

Ex:

    (*JS*)
    %{
        alert(String(1.0));
    %}

The language tag comment is case-sensitive (see below for tags), must use the (*…*) form, and there many be multiple or no spaces/new-lines between it and the token opening the extern block.

Ex. this is as much fine as the above:

    (*JS*) %{ alert(String(1.0)); %}

Defined language tags:

• For C: ANSI-C or C99 or C or ISO-C.
• For CIL: CIL or CSharp or C-Sharp or C#.
• For JavaScript: JS or JavaScript or EScript or ECMAScript or ES5.
• For PHP: PHP.
• For Perl: Perl.
• For Python: Python or Py (note the colorization used is that of Python 3).

No language tag or an unknow language tag, makes the extern block content be colorized uniformly with the preprocessor color.

License

See LICENSE file.