CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpstormhighlightingsource-highlighting
pazof
pazof

Reputation: 964

How to make PhpStorm automatically highlight selection

I cannot find a way to make PhpStorm highlight the appearances of a selected word/string in a file automatically at the time of the selection.

Example - say I have this code (the logic doesn't matter):

$app = new App(); //this is an app var of type "App" that contains our Application
$application_ranks = $app_array['app_rankings'];    //some operation

Now, I make a selection - say I select the first "app" part.

PhpStorm behavior with BrowseWordAtCaret plugin installed (no highlighting whatsoever):

enter image description here

Sublime Text 2 behavior (incomplete):

enter image description here

Notepad++ behavior (close, but still not perfect):

enter image description here

PhpDesigner 8 behavior (works as expected):

enter image description here

To save your time, I am aware of the "Highlight Usages" feature which pretty much does the same thing - the problem though is that this works only for variables/classes/function names/function calls etc, while what I am after is for this to work for ANY selected sequence of characters, regardless if it is a variable or a comment or a function or whatever. Like if you pressed Ctrl+F (Find).

I did try the BrowseWordAtCaret plugin for PhpStorm suggested in this post but it still doesn't provide this functionality.

Is it possible to somehow achieve this? I am quite bewildered that something so simple (and basic - maybe even fundamental for coding in my opinion) is so hard to achieve on an editor this full of capabilities and so much devoted to provide a great user experience etc.

Thanks for your time!

Upvotes: 10

Views: 4889

Answers (2)

Peter Kota
Peter Kota

Reputation: 8350

Edit in 2021:

  1. Go to: Preferences | Editor | Code Editing

  2. Find the following section in General: Highlight on Caret Movement

  3. Check the following checkbox: Highlight usages of element at caret

Note, this does not work as OP asks, in fact there's no current way to make the IDE work like that.

The BrowseWordAtCaret plugin comes close but only works on full words. You have to configure it to auto-highlight as well: Preferences | Editor | General | Appearance.

Upvotes: 3

pazof
pazof

Reputation: 964

Not the perfect solution, yet close enough:

Top Menu -> View -> Highlight Word at Caret

or alternatively:

Settings -> Editor -> General -> Appearance - Highlight Word at Caret

Note that this is a BrowseWordAtCaret plugin option, so it requires the installation of the plugin. To install it, go to Settings -> Plugins -> Browse Repositories -> BrowseWordAtCaret -> Install.

This will still not highlight the word if it's part of another string, but it will highlight it in all other occasions. Example:

PhpStorm:

enter image description here

PhpDesigner:

enter image description here

Upvotes: 13

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