[racket-dev] [racket] Text highlighting on Windows

From: Matthew Flatt (mflatt at cs.utah.edu)
Date: Sun Sep 12 12:49:49 EDT 2010

This is now done for Gracket2 (i.e., the new implementation of
`racket/gui' that is approaching "alpha" status).

In Gracket2, the last argument to `draw' in `snip%' has been extended
to tell a snip which part of its content to draw in selected mode. Text
selection in an editor should correctly adapt to the current platform
and theme convention.

At Wed, 14 Jul 2010 07:29:08 -0600, Matthew Flatt wrote:
> [Moved to dev list.]
> 
> Anyone interested in working on this? The relevant code is in
> 
>   collects/mred/private/wxme/test.rkt
> 
> in `do-redraw'. Look for the use of `outline-brush'.
> 
> The current strategy for drawing the selection is to draw the plain
> content and then apply a 'hilite brush over that. Under Windows and X,
> a 'hilite brush inverts colors. Under Mac OS X, a 'hilite brush adds
> the selection color on top of the drawing. The Mac OS X strategy is
> roughly correct for that platform. I think other Windows apps, however,
> handle highlighting differently: they draw some highlighting background
> (e.g., dark blue) and then draw the content in a different mode (e.g.,
> drawing white text instead of black or colored). I don't know what the
> conventions are for X these days.
> 
> Since Windows highlighting is supposed to work completely differently
> than the current strategy (I think), a good solution may require
> extending the snip% protocol.
> 
> In GRacket2, there's no color-invert operation --- no xor drawing
> supoprted by the underlying drawing library. So, that's another reason
> that the strategy for Windows and X needs to change. Currently,
> GRacket2 highlights using a transparent gray on all platforms (roughly
> the same as GRacket1's 'hilite for Mac OS X).
> 
> 
> At Tue, 13 Jul 2010 18:37:06 +0000 (UTC), George Horton wrote:
> > Are there any plans to fix text highlighting on Windows, please? (It's bug
> > 9202/10166: in Racket 5.0 on Windows 7, highlighted text is poorly rendered
> > whatever rendering settings in DrRacket or Windows are used.) As far as I can
> > tell, this is the only thing making Racket unsuitable for desktop apps with 
> the
> > polish needed for public distribution. 
> > Thanks for any info,
> > George
> 
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