TSynEdit

Component	Description
	TSynEdit is the syntax highlighting editor. It paints the text by itself (it is not a Windows common control) and is the base of the whole library: highlighters, completion, search, printing, spell check and the other components all work on a TSynEdit.

Unit: SynEdit.Core. Inheritance: TCustomControl > TCustomSynEdit > TSynEdit. Platforms: Win32 and Win64.

uses
  SynEdit.Core, SynEdit.Highlighter.Pas;

Main features

• Syntax highlighting with any of the 63 highlighters, assigned with the Highlighter property.
• Gutter with line numbers, bookmarks and your own custom bands (see the Simple IDE demo).
• Code folding (UseCodeFolding, CodeFolding).
• Word wrap (WordWrap, WordWrapGlyph), indent guides, visible special characters (VisibleSpecialChars), right edge, active line color and bracket highlighting.
• Multiple carets and selection modes, triple and quadruple click, drag and drop editing.
• Undo and redo with grouping (eoGroupUndo, MaxUndo).
• Bookmarks (BookmarkOptions, OnPlaceBookmark, OnClearBookmark).
• Rendering with Direct2D/DirectWrite, ClearType and optional font ligatures (eoShowLigatures).
• Accessibility support (eoAccessibility).
• Zoom with the mouse wheel (OnZoom).
• Scroll bar annotations (ScrollbarAnnotations) to show search results and marks on the scroll bar.
• Customizable keystrokes (Keystrokes) mapped to editor commands (ecXxx).

Most used properties

Property	Description
Lines	The text, as a TStrings: Lines.LoadFromFile, Lines.Text...
Highlighter	The highlighter used to color the text.
Options	Set of TSynEditorOption flags (see below).
ScrollOptions	Set of TSynEditorScrollOption flags.
Gutter	Appearance of the gutter: width, line numbers, bands.
UseCodeFolding, CodeFolding	Enable and configure code folding.
SearchEngine	The engine used by SearchReplace: see Search and Replace.
TabWidth, RightEdge, RightEdgeColor	Tab size and the vertical line at a given column.
WordWrap, WordWrapGlyph	Soft wrap of the long lines.
ActiveLineColor, SelectedColor	Colors of the active line and of the selection.
ReadOnly, InsertMode, HideSelection	Behavior of the editor.
Keystrokes	The key bindings.
FontQuality	Font rendering quality (default fqClearTypeNatural).
TextHint	Placeholder shown when the editor is empty.

Editor options

The Options property is a set of TSynEditorOption. The default is:

eoAutoIndent, eoDragDropEditing, eoKeepCaretX, eoEnhanceHomeKey, eoEnhanceEndKey, eoTabIndent, eoTabsToSpaces, eoSmartTabDelete, eoGroupUndo, eoDropFiles, eoShowLigatures, eoBracketsHighlight, eoAccessibility, eoCompleteBrackets, eoCompleteQuotes.

Option	Effect
eoAutoIndent	A new line gets the same indentation of the previous one.
eoDragDropEditing	Selected text can be dragged to another position.
eoDropFiles	The editor accepts files dropped from the Explorer (OnDropFiles).
eoEnhanceHomeKey, eoEnhanceEndKey	Smarter Home and End keys.
eoGroupUndo	Undo and redo handle together the continuous changes of the same kind.
eoKeepCaretX	Keeps the X position of the caret when moving between lines.
eoSmartTabs, eoSmartTabDelete	The tab goes to the next non-blank character of the previous line.
eoTabIndent	Tab and Shift+Tab indent and unindent the selected block.
eoTabsToSpaces	Tabs are converted to spaces.
eoTrimTrailingSpaces	Trailing spaces are removed.
eoShowLigatures	Shows the ligatures of the font.
eoBracketsHighlight	Highlights the matching bracket.
eoCompleteBrackets, eoCompleteQuotes	Adds the closing bracket or quote while typing.
eoCopyPlainText	The clipboard receives only plain text.
eoNoCaret, eoNoSelection	No caret or no selection (viewers).
eoWrapWithRightEdge	The word wrap uses the right edge position.
eoAccessibility	Enables the accessibility support.

The scroll options (ScrollOptions) include eoHideShowScrollbars, eoDisableScrollArrows, eoShowScrollHint, eoScrollPastEof, eoScrollPastEol, eoHalfPageScroll, eoScrollByOneLess and eoScrollHintFollows.

Example

procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
begin
  SynEdit1.Highlighter := SynPasSyn1;
  SynEdit1.Options := SynEdit1.Options + [eoTrimTrailingSpaces];
  SynEdit1.UseCodeFolding := True;
  SynEdit1.Lines.LoadFromFile('Unit1.pas');
end;

Useful methods

Method	Description
SearchReplace(ASearch, AReplace, AOptions)	Searches and replaces text, returns the number of matches (see Search and Replace).
ExecuteCommand(Command, AChar, Data)	Executes an editor command (ecXxx) as if the key was pressed.
GetWordAtRowCol(XY)	The word at a given position.
GotoLineAndCenter(ALine)	Moves the caret to a line and centers it.
SelectAll, SelectAllMatchingText	Selection.
CopyToClipboard, CutToClipboard, PasteFromClipboard	Clipboard.
Undo, Redo, ClearAll	History and content.
BeginUpdate, EndUpdate	Suspend and resume the painting while changing the text (IncPaintLock and DecPaintLock are aliases kept for backward compatibility).
CollapseAll	Collapses all the foldable blocks.
AddKey(Command, Key1, SS1, ...)	Adds a key binding.

Main events

OnChange, OnStatusChange, OnProcessCommand, OnCommandProcessed, OnProcessUserCommand, OnGutterClick, OnGutterGetText, OnSpecialLineColors, OnPaint, OnPaintTransient, OnReplaceText, OnSearchNotFound, OnPlaceBookmark, OnClearBookmark, OnDropFiles, OnScanForFoldRanges, OnZoom, OnTripleClick, OnQuadrupleClick, OnMouseCursor and OnScroll.

Compatibility properties

FontSmoothing (with the type TSynFontSmoothMethod) is kept for the DFMs written with the older versions of SynEdit: the font quality is defined by FontQuality.