Script Editing Features

Script Editor has a few editing features that can be changed or toggled for each specific language. These settings are toggled/set using two different methods:

  • Edit > Toggle menu items: Affect the current session and are forgotten when Rhino restarts.

  • Editor Options Dialog: Are persistent and are stored in editor configuration file to disk.

Depending on the type of feature, there might be a Toggle menu item or a setting in Editor Options, or both. Some features are language-specific and can be set independently by scripting language.

Tabs or Spaces?

Choose Edit > Toggle White Spaces to toggle visibilty of white spaces (Tab or Space) in your scripts. See Show White Spaces in Editing Options. This option is Off by default:

Edit > Convert Indentation to Tabs/Spaces commands can be used to convert between Space and Tab indentations. When changing your scripts to SDK-Mode in Grasshopper, the indentation is detected and used in modified script:

Indentation Guides

Indentation guides are vertical lines drawn at different indentation levels to help visually identifying scopes and blocks. See Show Indentation Guides in Editing Options. This option is On by default:

Minimap

Choose Edit > Toggle Minimap to toggle visibilty of minimap. It is effectively a thicker vertical scrollbar that shows a tiny preview of your script. You can scroll up and down the script using minimap. See Show Minimap in Editing Options. This option is Off by default:

Line Numbers

Pretty clear what they are! Choose Edit > Toggle Line Numbers to toggle their visibility:

Diagnostics (Linting)

As you are typing your script, the editor is continiously checking for syntax errors using the static analyzers provided by the language. These messages are categorized as Errors, Warnings, or Info and show up in the Problems panel at the bottom of the editor. The script text area also shows squiggly lines where these errors are located. You can click on each item in Problems panel to navigate the cursor to where the problem is:

When there are messages in the Problems panel, its tab shows an icon with a count of messages listed in the panel:

By default, the Problems panel only shows error messages. You can use the filter toggles on the panel to see other message types as well:

See Diagnostics (Linting) in Language Support Options to turn diagnostics off for a specific language. This option is On by default.

Autocompletion

Script editor has completion support for all languages. There are a few kinds of autocompletion:

  • Word Completion: usually triggers when typing space or . and provides completion for methods, properties, function calls, etc:

  • Signature Completion usually triggers when opening a ( and provides function help and parameter list, as well as tracking and highlighting arguments as you type:

  • Shorthand Completion usually triggers when typing space after a keyword and provides common templates:

Word-based Autocomplete

Editor can collect words already used in the script to help with autocomplete. However as it does not have a full understanding of the context and meaning of these collected words, this type of autocompletion is not always useful. This option is Off by default. Choose Edit > Toggle Word-based Autocomplete to turn it on. See Autocompletion in Language Support Options to toggle this option on for a specific language:

Autocomplete in Function Help

Usually when typing up arguments to a function, we would like to keep the Signature Completion open so it can track the arguments being typed and help with each argument type or expected values. For this reason, autocompletion is momentarily stopped to keep the Signature Completion popup open:

To change this behaviour - for example to get the autocompletion for os. in example above - choose Edit > Toggle Autocomplete in Function Help. See Autocompletion in Language Support Options to toggle this option for a specific language.