Syntax highlighting for text files, breaks up walls of white text.

README.md

Plain-text Syntax Highlighting

Over the years I've gotten used to reading code with syntax highlighting. The colouring of the highlighting provides anchoring points for my eyes as I scroll, helping me to keep my place. However, when I'd be editing plain-text, I have no anchoring points, just a huge wall of text; so I wrote a simple syntax file for it.

All it does is highlights capitalized words, very simple. This typically ends up highlighting things of importance: headings, names, and most importantly the beginning of sentences. I've found this to be a good amount of highlighting without being overwhelming, providing context without being overly flashy.

Here's my current version:

Other things I've tried:

• Highlighting words before punctuation (way too much stuff, and highlights the ends of sentences rather than the beginnings)
• Highlighting the beginnings of lines (Doesn't really provide context anchors, since it's mostly uniform)
• Highlighting 'even-numbered' lines (ugh... stripes)

Installation

Getting this to work is super easy,

1. Download the text.vim file and put it in ~/.vim/syntax/text.vim
2. Make sure you have syntax on in your ~/.vimrc Done!!

text.vim

" Place this in ~/.vim/syntax/text.vim and Vim will pick it up automagically for text files. (Must have `syntax on`)
" Vim syntax file
" Language: text
" Maintainer: Chris Penner
" Latest Revision: 14 May 2015

if exists("b:current_syntax")
  finish
endif

"----------------------------------------------------------------/
" Regex for capitalized words, add your own matches here:
syn match beginSentence '[A-Z][a-z]*'
"----------------------------------------------------------------------------/
"  Setup syntax highlighting
"----------------------------------------------------------------------------/
"
let b:current_syntax = "text"

hi def link beginSentence       Typedef
" Choose other options to get a different colour:
" Valid options: Comment Constant Function Keyword Operator PreProc Repeat Special Statement Type Typedef

exactly what I was looking for. simple and nice. thanks so much

Nice, simple, and easy. And usefull. Thanks a lot!