On Thu, 2 Dec 2021, Thangalin via ntg-context wrote:
Hi all,
There are a few technical hurdles with using the t-vim module in LMTX. First, users need to install the module using externally defined shell scripts. Second, it's awkward to communicate to users how to install it, especially for Windows users. Third, it likely requires installing vim, as a separate step. Fourth, making general-purpose XML setups that optionally rely on syntax highlighting when it is an optional install is a little laborious.
If installing a module was as easy as "install.sh --module=t-vim" then that would leap over most hurdles.
You can always install manually as follows: cd $TEXMFHOME wget https://mirrors.ctan.org/macros/context/contrib/context-{filter,vim}.zip unzip context-{filter,vim}.zip
Although there'd still be a dependency on installing vim.
Yes, that's a trade-off that the vim module makes. But, last time I used Windows (some 10 years ago), installing vim was relatively easy. Download the install from vim's website, and click next a couple of times.
How would you go about creating a syntax highlighter for Java that can work with LMTX?
I'll let others answer that. Had I known that, I wouldn't have written a module to do syntax highlighting :-) In the end, it also depends on how refined a syntax highlighter you want. Writing a simple keyword based highlighter is relatively easy. See, for example, scite-context-lexer-cpp.lua in the distribution, which is based on the CPP lexer in scite. Aditya