Feature Request: Official UDL or Syntax Highlighting Support for Harbour Programming Language

[pchgdz]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Description of the Issue

Dear Notepad++ Team,

I would like to request official support for the Harbour programming language in Notepad++, either as a built-in syntax highlighting definition or a User Defined Language (UDL) preset.

What is Harbour?

Harbour is a modern, open-source xBase language (a successor to Clipper), used for business applications. Its syntax resembles older languages like Clipper or FoxPro, but it's still actively developed and widely used in production environments.

Why add Harbour support?

• Many developers use Notepad++ to work with .prg, .ch, .hb files.
• Harbour syntax includes structured blocks such as:
  • FUNCTION ... RETURN
  • PROCEDURE ... RETURN
  • IF ... ENDIF
  • DO CASE ... ENDCASE
  • FOR ... NEXT
  • DO WHILE ... ENDDO
• A working UDL definition exists, but it requires manual import and lacks native integration.

What we can provide:

I can share a fully working .xml UDL file that supports:

• syntax highlighting for all main constructs
• code folding
• support for OEM code pages (like CP852)

Please let me know if there is interest in including it or improving it with community help. I'd be happy to collaborate!

Thank you for the great work on Notepad++!

Best regards,
Piotr Chmielewski

Describe the solution you'd like.

I would like to request official support for the Harbour programming language in Notepad++, either as a built-in syntax highlighting definition or a User Defined Language (UDL) preset.

What is Harbour?

Harbour is a modern, open-source xBase language (a successor to Clipper), used for business applications. Its syntax resembles older languages like Clipper or FoxPro, but it's still actively developed and widely used in production environments.

Why add Harbour support?

• Many developers use Notepad++ to work with .prg, .ch, .hb files.
• Harbour syntax includes structured blocks such as:
  • FUNCTION ... RETURN
  • PROCEDURE ... RETURN
  • IF ... ENDIF
  • DO CASE ... ENDCASE
  • FOR ... NEXT
  • DO WHILE ... ENDDO
• A working UDL definition exists, but it requires manual import and lacks native integration.

What I can provide:

I can share a fully working .xml UDL file that supports:

• syntax highlighting for all main constructs
• code folding
• support for OEM code pages (like CP852)

Thank you for considering this!

Debug Information

.

Anything else?

No response

[pryrt]

@pchgdz , I moved your request to Notepad++'s User Defined Languages Collection, rather than the application's repository, because this is where UDL are shared.

Getting a new built-in language added to Notepad++ is more difficult, because it would need to first be coded and added to the Lexilla library that Notepad++ uses for syntax highlighting. And the Lexilla team usually doesn't write new lexers themselves anymore; instead, they rely on people writing lexers for them and submitting them to that project, so it's highly unlikely that it would happen (unless it turned out that it was similar "enough" to xBase or Clipper that it could re-use one of those lexers for another language).

You said,

I can share a fully working .xml UDL file ...

Great! Please attach that XML to a reply in this moved Issue, and I can help you add it to the Collection. Also, if you have an AutoCompletion definition XML for the language, and/or a FunctionList definition XML for the language, then attach those as well, because

Unfortunately, it won't be automatically distributed with Notepad++ (so it violates your request for "preset"): the Notepad++ Developer decided that rather than have hundreds of UDL distributed with the main Notepad++ app -- when most users would only use one or two of those, and when there's a limit to the number of UDL that can be installed in Notepad++ at the same time -- that there would be this Collection where users could download just the UDL that they were interested in. So once it's in this Collection, anyone will be able to find this UDL and download and install it, if they want it.

Just so you know, while right now, it's a pretty manual process, I am actively working on a plugin that people could install (using Plugins Admin) that will make it really easy to download definitions from this UDL Collection, so (hopefully) soon, the process will be much easier for people.