Experience report about Haskell TextMate bundle

[jensli]

Hi,

This is not a bug report since I know this is outside the LiClipse project. But I made a few notes about how the Haskell TextMate bundle is functioning and I thought that might be interesting for others. Maybe this information can help developers to make improvements of the TextMate import functionality.

Experience

This colour scheme works poorly, mostly since many separate syntax elements all get the same classifications.

Examples:

• Different kinds of symbols (example ->, <-, =), operators, and string delimiters (") are all coloured as keywords. I think this is because they are classified as keyword.operator.haskell, and this is probably interpreted as keyword instead of operator.
• In function type declarations, types are coloured as method, function names are coloured in black, unknown category.
• Brackets are coloured as normal text (__dftl_partition_content_type).
• Line comment symbol (--) is coloured as keyword, not as comment (text after -- is coloured as comment).

Also the outline (and the Next Element command) are not working. But the Select Enclosing Scope and Toggle Comment commands are working fine.

Conclusion

To get a pretty Haskell colouring I think that it necessary either with a dedicated LiClipse colour file or for the TextMate import functionality to improve.

Post Scriptum

Thanks for a very useful plug-in! The ability to use Eclipse as a general text editor with lightweight support for many languages is very nice to have. It really fills a hole, especially since the alternative project, Eclipse Colorer, seems to be almost abandoned.

I really like that LiClipse has some additional features apart from syntax colouring, such as the commands Toggle Comment, Next Element, Select Enclosing Scope and Quick Outline. This plug-in is a clear candidate for me to make contributions to in the future. Maybe with a Haskell colour file. :)