How do I add a syntax highlighter format to Gedit?

Question

How can I add in the regular expressions for an additional syntax language?

Solution 1

Gedit (the default text editor) using GTKSourceView for it's syntax highlighting. It uses XML files to define how to highlight different syntax.

There is a tutorial and a reference document on the GTKSourceView site. Finished source file definitions are stored in /usr/share/gtksourceview-2.0/language-specs/ or /usr/share/gtksourceview-3.0/language-specs/, you might want to check them out to learn by example.

There is also a less in depth tutorial on the Gedit site.

After you create your new language spec, restart gedit and it will automatically add it to its list of languages.

Solution 2

I assume you are talking about gedit (labeled as "text editor" in the ubuntu menu).

Gedit is using GtkSourceView for syntax highlighting. You have to create a language definition for GtkSourceView.

Here is a tutorial: https://developer.gnome.org/gtksourceview/stable/lang-tutorial.html

update 2021: link dead. now here: https://developer-old.gnome.org/gtksourceview/stable/lang-tutorial.html

i do not know why it is "developer-old" now. maybe deprecated. i was not able to find a new tutorial. but i did not search much.

here is the new gnome developer tutorials: https://developer.gnome.org/documentation/tutorials.html

i did not find a gedit syntax highlight tutorial there.

Comments

[Eyal]

Editors running in up-to-date versions of Ubuntu will probably be using gtksourcceview-3.0 .. so look for a directory with 3.0, not 2.0 as in the answer above.

[Frittierapparat]

Unfortunately that link to the tutorial is outdated. I get an Error 404 trying to open it.