Creating First Custom Vision Component

Module Development
,
1

Hi all,

I'm after some advice as to how easy/hard creating a custom Vision component would be:

I'd like to make a component that extends the standard Text Area component, but adds syntax highlighting to text entered in it (for context, it would be machine G-Code highlighting like this image). I originally thought there would be a way to change foreground color of the component to accomodate this but all my searching has seemed to point towards custom components.

I've had a look at the vision component in SDK examples and realised I would be starting from scratch with learning how to do this as I have very little exposure to Java.

Am I biting off more than I can chew with this project? Or would anyone have any advice?

2

Extending an existing component is the right (and reasonable) approach, but text is an especially difficult topic. I'm not sure how you'd get the text area to style individual spans.

Blaze a trail for us?

3

It would probably be "easier" to make a Vision component that provides an RSyntaxTextArea, the code editor currently used for scripting. You'd have to make your own custom token maker to do the syntax highlighting you want, though, in addition to all the Vision component and general Java build system trappings.