Is there an IDE out there that does structural syntax highlighting?

Question

Somewhat inspired by this question about a graphical programming environment. I don\'t think that C++ or C# are really conducive to this type of environment, but perhaps there\

Answer 1

I'm the author of Codekana. Indeed, what you describe above was the main goal for the product. BTW, I'm about to publish an article about the "making of" and the underlying technology, which is pretty nifty. It will probably be available next week (March 26, '09 or so). Recommended reading, if I may say so myself.

The reason Codekana only provides outlines, instead of a colored background, are limitations in VS's text rendering extensibility. I will hopefully be able to implement a solid-background version at some point in the future, although it will definitely require serious hacking and "rocket surgery".

I would have commented above, instead of providing another answer, but my reputation doesn't allow commenting. :(

[UPDATE: Thanks for the upvotes, now I can comment!]

Answer 2

I'm working on a Visual Studio extension inspired by this question. You can see what I have so far here:

http://lorgonblog.wordpress.com/2010/11/12/the-f-compiler-source-release-making-it-easy-to-write-cool-visual-studio-extensions/

Answer 3

A nice idea. Personally, I really don't like folding editors, but this would be quite tolerable - you'd want to be able to toggle it on/off easily though. Perhaps someone has already done this for the hyper-programmable editors like vim and emacs?

Answer 4

You should try this Addin and you will never work in visual studio without it, http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/index.html

PS: I'm not affiliated with this company or product but I'm an addict using it and I can never work without it, it saves me alot of time in my coding tasks and code exploration and debugging.

Answer 5

There's also a free extension that at least draws the guide lines colored according to what they belong to. For instance, if guides in green and so on:

It's called StructureAdornment and you can get it in the Extension Manager or from the Visual Studio Gallery.

I find it quite handy.