Babel Package Overview

[This documentation is for preview only, and is subject to change in later releases. Blank topics are included as placeholders.]

The Babel package provides an alternative to implementing a language service in Visual Studio. Using Babel, you get support for the following features:

• Syntax highlighting (including custom colors)

• Error markers (red wavy underlines)

• Block comments

• Automatic brace matching

• Statement completion

• Member lists

• Tip information (quick information)

• Method tips

• Autos window support in the debugger

The following illustration shows how the Babel package is related to Visual Studio and the language services.

Babel overview

You can use the default implementation of IBabelService Interface by creating the Visual Studio Language Service Package solution. For more information, see Walkthrough: Creating a Language Service Package andThe Default Babel Implementation in the Language Service Package.

To customize the language service provided by the Babel package, you can provide your own custom IBabelService implementation along with your existing compiler. You do not have to implement the core language service interfaces, but you still have full control over how source code is parsed. To make these changes, override the IBabelService::ParseSource Method and IBabelService::ColorLine Method methods in the IBabelService interface to work with your parser. For more information, see Implementing the IBabelService Interface.