A Simple Solution For NetBeans RCP Apps That Need A Groovy Editor
- by Geertjan
Take a look at Nils Hoffmann's metabolomic analyzer, especially at the Groovy editor contained within it:
Obviously, it would be cool if the Groovy editor in the app above were to have syntax coloring and other editor features helpful in coding Groovy.
However, as I showed in If You Include the Groovy Editor, there are multiple dependencies that the NetBeans Groovy support has on other modules that would be completely superfluous in the above application, while they'd make the app much heavier than it is, simply because of all the Groovy dependencies.
But today I thought of a simple solution. Why not take the Groovy.g file (i.e., the ANTLR definition), such as this one [though that's probably not the most up to date one, wondering how to find the most up to date one] and then apply the content of this screencast (made by me) to the Groovy.g file:
Within a few minutes, you should end up with Groovy syntax coloring. OK, so that's not a full blown Groovy editor, but syntax coloring is surely a cool thing to have in the app with which this blog entry started? Sure, this means creating a new Groovy editor from scratch. But the point is that doing so can be very simple, i.e., the syntax coloring can simply be generated via the simple instructions above. I'm going to try it myself in the next few days, but would be cool if others out there would try this too!
