[Documentation] Show a list of supported syntax-highlighting for different languages

[rubyFeedback]

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Today I found out about pulsar. I did not know that atom had a successor.

The first question I had was: does pulsar support syntax highlighting of ruby. Right now I don't know.

So my request is this: would it be possible to perhaps add a document or link that shows which languages are supported by pulsar, in regards to syntax highlighting? This could be a file that is autogenerated, so you don't have to manually update it. I autogenerate a lot of such files in my own ruby projects, so that I don't forget having to manually update.

That file could simply show which languages are supported, such as in a .yml file, say:

• python
• php

And so forth. Or, if you want to add a bit more information, you could also do a qualitative table, such as "python support: excellent; ruby support: good" or something like that, e. g. when you have a bit of syntax highlighting, but not all of it.

Syntax colour highlighting is useful because we can quickly identify problems in a code base that way. To me it does not matter than much WHICH colours are used - just that colours are used, in particular for the keyword of a specific language.

If such a file already exists or if it is documented, then perhaps it could be made more explicit - I only had a first glance on the homepage here, so I may have missed something. And perhaps another small screenshot showing 1-3 different languages or so, just to give people an initial impression of what to expect from pulsar. In particular people who may use another editor right now, it may be a useful nudge to consider switching to pulsar, yes?

[savetheclocktower]

I don't yet have feedback for the specific things you're proposing, but I'll say this: it is a bit odd that the Pulsar web site doesn't include a list of supported languages. It doesn't even include any screenshots of the application, except for a few buried in documentation pages.

I think Pulsar could sell itself much better in this respect.

To find out exactly which languages we support out of the box, you can browse this directory for any package name that beings with language-. Obviously we should be presenting that data on the website, but at least it answers your immediate question.

[confused-Techie]

These are all great ideas on how we can better show what languages we support.

And like @savetheclocktower mentioned browsing our /packages directory, you'll see all the packages that come with Pulsar by default, everything starting with language- is a built in language we support.

But I'll add that part of the beauty of Pulsar is the community made packages that you can install, which add support for far more languages than come out of the box. If you'd like to find out if a community package supports the language you care about you can search it on the Pulsar Package Repository (PPR) website.

While the search for this information isn't exposed right now, using a URL like https://web.pulsar-edit.dev/packages/?fileExtension=<YOUR_FILE_EXTENSION_HERE> will tell you if any community packages provide any kind of support for that file extension. Keep in mind that sometimes this support may actually be linting or autocompletions, but everything prefixed with language- is generally going to provide at least syntax highlighting. For example if you'd like to see what community packages support .js or JavaScript files I'd search https://web.pulsar-edit.dev/packages/?fileExtension=js to go through the list of packages.