[MonoDevelop] Syntax Highlighting doesn't work

[Andy B]

I finally got monodevelop running with syntax coloring.  I used the
SimplyMEPIS distro (brilliant distro!) which had gedit doing coloring out
the box.  This meant the right bits were in place as a basis for
monodevelop's editor.

Installing monodevelop: I ran the latest installer - not the rpm - as a
local user (not as root) from the command line.  Run monodevelop from the
command line by typing monodevelop.

I got misc crashes and madness using the monodevelop GTK visual froms
designer until I installed something called MetaCity - A lightweight GTK2
based Window Manager, which I used Synaptic package manager in the
SimplyMEPIS distro to do.  This seemed to make monodevelop run nicely.

Final note: installing monodevelop and mono using the Synaptic package
manager not only installs some old version, but it doesn't even run.  So
uninstall it and just use the technique outlined above instead.  This seems
to make a local installation that is guaranteed to run.

Finally!   P.S. It shouldn't be this hard...  Its actually easy once you
know the steps above i.e. get the right distro, get the right mono
installer, run as local user, install metacity, ensure gedit is doing syntax
highlighting to indicate whether the right bits are in place for
monodevelop's syntax highlighting.

Andy Bulka
www.atug.com/andypatterns


 -----Original Message-----
From: Lluis Sanchez [mailto:lluis at ximian.com] 
Sent: Friday, 2 June 2006 7:20 PM
To: abulka at netspace.net.au
Cc: monodevelop-list at lists.ximian.com
Subject: RE: [MonoDevelop] Syntax Highlighting doesn't work

El dv 02 de 06 del 2006 a les 16:57 +1000, en/na Andy B va escriure:
> > I don't think it's fragile. It works for most of people. Syntax
> > highlight is not implemented by MonoDevelop but by gtksourceview. Do you
> > get syntax highlight if you open your files with GEdit?
> 
> If it works for *most* people then that's still a little fragile -

I fear that MonoDevelop will be fragile for ever, since bug-free
software is a myth ;-)

> especially when I'm one of the people for whom it doesn't work!  And on
two
> different linux distros (fresh installs, too).
> 
> You are right - Gedit doesn't have syntax highlighting either!  I didn't
> have gedit installed, used yast to install it and verified this.

Then this is not a bug in MonoDevelop, but a gtksourceview installation
issue. Maybe KDE has some kind of conflict with this gnome component?
Sorry, I fear I can't help on that.

In any case, I think it would be nice to show a warning message in
MonoDevelop when syntax highlight info is not available, and explain
possible causes.

Lluis.