@swegmike ,
Putting this as delicately as I can, when I was developing my UDL, I ran into the same problem. Solution: Do it the way the functionList regex(boost) does it. Which means, learn the boost or rather, the NPP way of doing it. Stop trying to compare apples and oranges to get what you want done by insisting on shoehorning some other tool into it.
Regex101.com is a great resource for someone learning regex and trying things out to interactively see how different combinations help to achieve results…but since they even have mutiple ‘flavors’ of regex, that should tell you something right there. There is no one only option. You take the good with the bad…and in this case, they don’t offer their site with a boost version. Unfortunately for you, they also don’t write Notepad++, and currently, NPP uses the Boost regex engine for whatever reason the developers chose to use it. Since Regex101.com doesn’t offer you a way to write a functionList for NPP…you’re stuck having to learn the tool this tool chose to use or forego the tool.
I get it, it was a setback for me also and I had to learn to use the NPP/Boost, and I had a lot of help from these folks here on how to get it to work to do what I wanted, but that’s because they’re familiar with this tool, using these tools, and have developed similar things also. So…best advise, is to buckle down and start using the present tools, rather than dream of a perfect world. :) No sense wishing, when you can make a suggstion for future use, but presently use and learn the tools available. I’m still a newbie regex user, and regex101.com is my choice for interactive development of a regex, but at the end of the day, it helps me get 90% of the way there, but I still have to finish it in Boost…so…I do.
Happy New Year to you and all the fine folks here who are willing to help you use the tools available NOW. :)