A forum’s not a great place to document a project, sorry for any confusion.
So it styled fine when I opened a php file with some expressionengine tags already in it, but for auto-completion to work you have to select the language.
When I selected the ExpressionEngin from the language menu it broke the styling of the Ruby theme, since nothing is defined for ExpressionEngin language. I think some files would need combined, or maybe someplace just duplicate and rename the applicable html.xml and or php.xml file, I’m not sure where the styling profiles are stored in the program just now.
Moving along though.

This is definitely a work in progress! Don’t expect everything to work out of the box, but if we work together it might be a great addition for webdevelopers. Until EE2.0 comes out But even then it should be quite easy to change things…

It is true you have to select the specific EE language for auto-completion to work, therefor I’m looking for a solution to combine languages: html+ee, php+ee, but I’m not sure if that’s possible in Notepad++...

But thanks for joining in, we’ll get there. All we need is time

I think the stylers.xml needs the ExpressionEngin language added to it, but adding a node in there doesn’t seem to work like I think it would.
There’s a stylers.xml in the program files root folder and also the %app data% folder, confused
I think a better name for the User Defined Language would be EE Tags.
Still digging on the styling issues, mine looks bad now.

I had another thought, maybe we could try getting the N++ people involved by sending them that auto-complete file. It’s not playing nicely with the Ruby theme, might at least get some hints.
I’ll send them a screenshot and the file, it would be great to get EE added semi-officially.
Granted it’s still not a completed work.

Ronny - 02 December 2008 12:45 PM

At last I’ve been able to find my xml-file and post it. Sorry for the delay, but I just got a new job and it’s pretty busy.

Just add the xml-file in the attached rar-file to your Notepad++/api folder and in Notepad++ you can select in “Language” the ExpressionEngin language for any “EE intellisense” you need. I called it ExpressionEngin (without the final E) because, if I remember correctly, there was a limit to the length you can use.

The annoying thing is that it will recognize already a lot of EE tags, but ignores any html tags. Perhaps they could be combined? Besides that I’m not sure how to combine this file with Cem Meric’s file.

Anyway, there’s enough knowledge here to get this thing working. At least there are still a whole lot of EE tags that could be added, I believe I finished most of the “exp:weblog” tags

Let me know if you’ve got any questions.

Thanks for the auto complete file Ronny. I’ve added some code hint options on top of what you had. Attached images show how it works.

You can test it by placing all files in “Notepad++.zip” to installation folder.

Very useful thanks Cem, that’s a pretty polished setup now, especially for the EE tag basics.
Here’s a little how to on Windows computers for plugging in the Zip goodies from Cem:

In order to install the custom language file you need to have hidden files and folders shown on your computer (google how to do it) then navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\your user account\Application Data\Notepad++\ Rename the userDefineLang.xml to userDefineLang.bak and copy the new file from the zip. To install autocomplete navigate to C:\program files\Notepad++\plugins\apis\ copy the EE.api and EE.xml file into that directory.
Note: If you change the name of the custom language xml file you have to change the .api file to the same name. in order to use autocomplete just ctrl+space while your working on an a file. Be sure to select EE from the Language drop down menu.

I was able to rename the plugins to EE Tags like above with EE Tags.api and EE Tags.xml.
Then changing the code in the userDefineLang.xml at the top on line #2:

Hope it helps, working pretty nicely now, thanks a ton Cem and Ronny!

Nice one T.Gee….waaaait you sneaky Crssp-ee
Have you looked at interactive clips any further? Seems like it would be easy (read time consuming) to build up HTML.def in C:\Program Files\PSPad editor\Context
Interactive way of choosing tag (weblog) options would be really cool. Auto-complete is nice but you still have to remember to use/start to type the parameter….yes lazy is good.
I used the n++ but found it crashing when opening some of of partial HTML - the ee includes.

If the Dreamweaver would only support for code “{}”  I could keep my WYG on.

Here is a PSPad in action as well…looks very doable
Is there a ‘master list’ of parameters/tags or perhaps some extract from textmate bundles that we can port over?

Thanks lebisol, I wasn’t able to track down a screenshot of just how that worked then.
NOt as slick looking as just tabbing through the code in the text editor, but essentially it would work just the same, if the interface wasn’t to clunky and didn’t bog down right there. Probably it would be very smooth.

The list of items in the actual bundle is 47 files, so it’s pretty involved.
I actually have the tmBundle installed in a trial version of the E-texteditor.
You can see all the drop-down menus and the code that it produces there.
With a few screenshots and then actually executing the snippets it would create a master list, lot’s of work. That’s why I’m liking the notepad++ for my basic use now.

Getting to know these editors some may offer more in the way of user customizations, there are so many out there. some sort of smart auto-complete would be incredibly easy to use, if it just remembered what parameters you added to what snippets all on it’s own, haven’t seen that yet. :(

yeah the the tabbing doesn’t trigger it…you have to hold “Ctrl+Space Bar” then type through.
There is not a lot of documentation on macros but I think I got them down ...I edited the HTML.def file and added a few to create the above screen.
I have not used all of the power or EE and needed a lot of tags and parameters so all I would have to go by is the doc
But if someone is interested to help confirm I would not mind building this up.

lebisol - 05 December 2008 01:02 PM

Here is a PSPad in action as well…looks very doable

nicely done

Wow, thanks for this, it’s really great