Notepad++ release 8.9

D Lix

@PeterJones
I use 32-bit Notepad++ Portable version 8.9
The theme where JavaScript entry is duplicated in the Style Configurator’s “Language” list is DuoTone Dark Sea, which is too old and no longer standard compliant, for all the other standard themes there are 2 entries JavaScript and Javscript (embedded). Javascript highlighting does not work even for those standard dark themes.

PeterJones

@D-Lix said in Notepad++ release 8.9:

@PeterJones
I use 32-bit Notepad++ Portable version 8.9
The theme where JavaScript entry is duplicated in the Style Configurator’s “Language” list is DuoTone Dark Sea, which is too old and no longer standard compliant,

Since it doesn’t come with Notepad++, it doesn’t surprise me if it’s out-of-date. When I searched for it, I found this Topic and the website it links to. For whatever reason, the author of that family of themes chose to start from an outdated theme for generating their family of themes, because despite the fact that the separate JS languages have existed since 2015, they didn’t have it when they announced it in 2019, and even the latest 2020 release didn’t use separate ones

for all the other standard themes there are 2 entries JavaScript and Javscript (embedded). Javascript highlighting does not work even for those standard dark themes.

Yes it does. I showed you a screenshot of Dark Mode Default, with obvious highlighting of JS in both *.js file and *.html file.

… But, as I said in my previous post, if a theme was missing a language and was upgraded by v8.9, then it used the default foreground and background color for every style in that new language, but you as the user can change the color for each style in that theme to whatever you think looks good. There is no way for an automated procedure to “guess” a good color that will make every user of a theme happy when filling in a missing style, so using the default color and letting the user change it if they want highlighting is the best choice. In terms of the fact that older Notepad++ versions, with outdated themes, wouldn’t syntax highlight those files, and wouldn’t let you change the colors with Style Configurator, the fact that in v8.9 you now can change those colors with Style Configurator is a drastic improvement – and exactly the improvement that was intended with the v8.9 release.

Looking in detail, Dark Mode Default and Solarized and Zenburn all have full colorization for JavaScript *.js files. Many of the others have Bold for keywords, though the foreground and background colors are default; and a few have just default foreground and background colors. But all of them allow you to change the color using Style Configurator, if you want it.

The historical problem is that the users who originally created any given Theme mostly stopped contributing updates to their themes a decade or more ago. As new languages are added to Notepad++, most themes didn’t get them at all (until v8.9), so people using those outdated themes couldn’t use Style Configurator to change their colors, and got no syntax highlighting for those new languages. Now, in v8.9, they are all available in the Style Configurator, no matter what theme they started from… but a user who wants to use one of those themes will have to set their own colors. So it went from being default foreground/background with it being impossible to change that for a given theme without digging into XML, to being default foreground/background colors but being really easy to change it using the Style Configurator – so a drastic improvement.

D Lix

@PeterJones
Just one more question, why Global override is now missing in the style list when Global Styles is selected in Language list in case of all the standard themes but Global override is still there for my DuoTone Dark Sea theme?

PeterJones

@D-Lix said in Notepad++ release 8.9:

@PeterJones
Just one more question, why Global override is now missing in the style list when Global Styles is selected in Language list in case of all the standard themes but Global override is still there for my DuoTone Dark Sea theme?

It’s not missing in any of them. It’s just been moved to the end of the list, not the beginning, since there’s very little reason to ever use Global Override, and by putting it at the beginning, people were accidentally encouraged to use the Global Override when they should have been changing the Default color instead. (That change of order was made in all distributed themes in v8.7.1.)

D Lix

@PeterJones
I should have noticed it myself. Thank you.

wimasoft

There is a character issue in v8.9:

As you can see it ok in v8.8.9

donho

@wimasoft
I guess it was you who deleted your post, because there’s no issue.
Do you confirm?

wimasoft

@donho
yes, it was me, but I thought it would make more sense to post on GitHub.
It is an issue for German language.

donho

@wimasoft

Cannot find the issue.

However, I cannot reproduce it:

wimasoft

@donho
This is indeed strange. I have extracted v8.9 zip to my existing portable folder. Then it happen. If I extract this version to a new folder everything is ok. Must be my fault…

Update: I’ve switched to English, extract new version and switched back to German. No it’s ok.
So, no issue any more. Should we delete my posts?

Alan Kilborn

@wimasoft said in Notepad++ release 8.9:

Should we delete my posts?

No, it is considered bad form to delete posts made here.

PeterJones

@PeterJones said in Notepad++ release 8.9:

(as described in the in the Update Theme(s) in User Config Directory section of the v8.8.9 Themes FAQ)

The Themes FAQ has been updated to include instructions for explaining and fixing the JavaScript if you upgraded to v8.9 and it messed up your JavaScript syntax highlighting.