Syntax Highlight in Winedt

Question

I am using Winedt 7.1 and learning TikZ and I am thinking about to add the commands to the keyword.ini, in the help they mentioned, adding to many keywords may affect the performance. Is there a possibility that the TikZ-Commands are only highlighted inside a tikzpicture environment?

Answer 1

Update (2017-02-14)

WinEdt version 10.2 implements a new feature: environment-sensitive modes.

This means that you have the chance to define highlighting properties specific to some environments only.

Thank to this new feature, a TikZ mode has been implemented, with an highlighting scheme borrowed from the one used in the pgf manual. Here's it in action:

This is an example which defines an "highlight switch" for the tikzpicture environment in the configuration file Switches.ini:

SWITCH="\begin{tikzpicture} .. \end{tikzpicture}"
  ENABLED=1
  MODE_FILTER="TeX|AUX"
  SET_LOCAL_MODE="*:TikZ"
  START="\"
  STOP="\"
  HIGHLIGHT_START=0
  STEP_OVER_STOP=1
  HIGHLIGHT_STOP=0
  SCOPE=4
  DOMINANT_PRIORITY=0
  STRICT_PRIORITY=0
  PRIORITY=5
  INDENTED=1
  BOLN_ONLY=0
  CASE_SENSITIVE=1
  START1_TRIGGER=""
  START2_TRIGGER="begin{tikzpicture}"
  STOP1_TRIGGER=""
  STOP2_TRIGGER="end{tikzpicture}"
    TEXT_COLOR="sclWindowText"
    DEFAULT_FONT=1
  CUSTOM_BACKGROUND=1
  GRADIENT_BACKGROUND=256
  TRANSPARENT=128
  GRADIENT_COLOR="xclEnvBkLeftGradient"
  BACKGROUND_COLOR="xclEnvBk"
  RELATIVE_RIGHT_MARGIN=1
  RIGHT_MARGIN=0
  INDENTED_LEFT_MARGIN=1
  LEFT_MARGIN=2

Note the line

  SET_LOCAL_MODE="*:TikZ"

which enters the TikZ mode.

Now, if you want to define your own keywords to be highlighted only inside these kind of environments, all you have to do is to define a "keyword group" in the configuration file "Keywords.ini" like this:

KEYWORD_GROUP="My TikZ Keywords"
  ENABLED=1
  MODE_FILTER="TikZ"
  BEFORE="\ (single)"
  AFTER="~Alpha@"
  BOLN_NOT_OK=1
  EOLN_NOT_OK=0
  HIGHLIGHT_START=1
  STRICT_PRIORITY=0
  PRIORITY=6
  CASE_SENSITIVE=1
    TEXT_COLOR="kwcTikZKeywords"
    DEFAULT_FONT=1
LIST="END_LIST"
<my list of keywords>
END_LIST

Note the line

  MODE_FILTER="TikZ"

which means that these keywords are highlighted only when inside the TikZ mode.

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Original answer

As far as I know, it is not possible to add environment-specific keywords in WinEdt.

Anyway, unless you have a very old computer and you add thousands of keywords, you will not see any particular slowdown in WinEdt's performance.