Merge pull request #1412 from tommyshem/batSyntaxHighlighting

[micro.git] / runtime / syntax / README.md

diff --git a/runtime/syntax/README.md b/runtime/syntax/README.md
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+# Syntax Files
+
+Here are micro's syntax files.
+
+Each yaml file specifies how to detect the filetype based on file extension or headers (first line of the file).
+Then there are patterns and regions linked to highlight groups which tell micro how to highlight that filetype.
+
+Making your own syntax files is very simple. I recommend you check the file after you are finished with the
+[`syntax_checker.go`](./syntax_checker.go) program (located in this directory). Just place your yaml syntax
+file in the current directory and run `go run syntax_checker.go` and it will check every file. If there are no
+errors it will print `No issues!`.
+
+You can read more about how to write syntax files (and colorschemes) in the [colors](../help/colors.md) documentation.
+
+# Legacy '.micro' filetype
+
+Micro used to use the `.micro` filetype for syntax files which is no longer supported. If you have `.micro`
+syntax files that you would like to convert to the new filetype, you can use the [`syntax_converter.go`](./syntax_converter.go) program (also located in this directory):
+
+```
+$ go run syntax_converter.go c.micro > c.yaml
+```
+
+Most the the syntax files here have been converted using that tool.
+
+Note that the tool isn't perfect and though it is unlikely, you may run into some small issues that you will have to fix manually
+(about 4 files from this directory had issues after being converted).
+
 # Micro syntax highlighting files
 
 These are the syntax highlighting files for micro. To install them, just
-run `./install.sh` one directory up (`runtime/`) which will simply put all the syntax files in `~/.micro/syntax`.
+put all the syntax files in `~/.config/micro/syntax`.
 
 They are taken from Nano, specifically from [this repository](https://github.com/scopatz/nanorc).
 Micro syntax files are almost identical to Nano's, except for some key differences:
 
-* Micro does not use `icolor`. Instead, for a case insensitive match, use the case insensitive flag (`(i)`) in the regular expression
+* Micro does not use `icolor`. Instead, for a case insensitive match, use the case insensitive flag (`i`) in the regular expression
+    * For example, `icolor green ".*"` would become `color green "(?i).*"`
+
+# Using with colorschemes
+
+Not all of these files have been converted to use micro's colorscheme feature. Most of them just hardcode the colors, which can be problematic depending on the colorscheme you use.
+
+Here is a list of the files that have been converted to properly use colorschemes:
+
+* vi
+* go
+* c
+* d
+* markdown
+* html
+* lua
+* swift
+* rust
+* java
+* javascript
+* pascal
+* python
+* ruby
+* sh
+* git
+* tex
+* solidity
+
+# License
+
+See [LICENSE](LICENSE).