LF Code Syntax Highlighting for Handbook

[arengarajan99]

Improvement Idea: Implementing Code Syntax Highlighting for Lingua Franca Code Snippets using PrismJS

Why: VS Code already implements Code Syntax Highlighting for .lf files. Remark-PrismJS is the standard Gatsby Plugin used to highlight code on Gatsby websites, and it's possible to create a custom language that Prism can process for code snippets

[lhstrh]

The syntax highlighting in VS Code is a lot more advanced than what is possible with prismjs, which is really just based on regular expression matching. Is there a way to leverage artifacts of the actual VS Code extension, like its TextMate grammar?

[lhstrh]

I found this, but it says it's not ready for production use.

[lhstrh]

So, yeah, maybe Prism is the way to go for now? Let me also tag @petervdonovan in case he has ideas about this.

[petervdonovan]

Is there a way to leverage artifacts of the actual VS Code extension, like its TextMate grammar?

In the spirit of staying DRY, maybe we could use the grammar file interpreter that is used in VS Code? That, combined with the non-declarative highlighting code, should be able to precisely match the highlight experience for VS Code users.

There are some problems with this. Apparently, "cross - grammar injections are currently not supported," but we need cross-grammar injections to highlight {= =} code blocks. I would be willing to help iron out these wrinkles so that we do not have to maintain multiple highlighters at once.

[petervdonovan]

This should be addressed by #11.