Edit Actions

Edit actions are classes that implement IEditAction and contain code to perform different simple tasks related to a SyntaxEditor. They are effectively commands with can-execute and executed handlers that perform all the work.

Edit Actions and Commands

SyntaxEditor includes over 100 unique edit actions, covering everything such as movements, selection types, clipboard operations, and more.

The built-in edit actions are all located in the ActiproSoftware.Windows.Controls.SyntaxEditor.EditActions namespace.

All commands related to the built-in edit actions are available via static properties on the EditorCommands class.

Executing Edit Actions

To execute an edit action, use the IEditorView.ExecuteEditAction method. Simply pass it an instance of the IEditAction to execute.

This code shows how to execute an IndentAction on the active view:

editor.ActiveView.ExecuteEditAction(new IndentAction());

Most of the edit action classes defined by SyntaxEditor also have helper methods which make running the edit actions easier. For instance, the IEditorViewSelection interface has a method SelectAll, which runs the SelectAllAction. Another example is the IEditorView interface has a method CopyToClipboard, which runs the CopyToClipboardAction.

Canceling an Edit Action

The IEditorView.ExecuteEditAction method immediately raises the SyntaxEditor.ViewActionExecuting event, which is passed an EditActionEventArgs that specifies the IEditorView and IEditAction being executed. The event args has a Cancel property that can be set to true to prevent the edit action from executing. This provides a way for certain edit actions to be externally filtered out if desired.

Creating a Custom Edit Action

Custom edit action classes may be defined. The only requirement is that they implement IEditAction. When defining an edit action, it's easiest to inherit EditActionBase.

This code shows how to define an edit action that surrounds the selected text with custom tags.

/// <summary>
/// Provides a custom <see cref="IEditAction"/> implementation that inserts a
/// <c>custom</c> tag surrounding the selected text.
/// </summary>
public class CustomAction : ActiproSoftware.Windows.Controls.SyntaxEditor.Implementation.EditActionBase {

	/// <summary>
	/// Initializes an instance of the <c>CustomAction</c> class.
	/// </summary>
	public CustomAction() : base("Custom") {}

	/// <summary>
	/// Executes the edit action in the specified <see cref="IEditorView"/>.
	/// </summary>
	/// <param name="view">The <see cref="IEditorView"/> in which to execute the edit action.</param>
	public override void Execute(IEditorView view) {
		view.InsertSurroundingText("<custom>", "</custom>");
	}

}