AsciiDoc Package for Sublime Text

Currently looking for a maintainer!

This is an AsciiDoc package for Sublime Tex. It adds syntax highlighting and snippets for AsciiDoc language to Sublime Text.

Sublime Text is compatible with the Textmate editor for OS X snippets, preferences and languages file. However, even though Sublime can recognize the Textmate snippets, some features such as tab completion and shortcut commands do not work out of the box. This package overcomes these limitations.

All the files provided here should work in Windows 7 and OS X Lion.

Installation (Package Control)

Find the package on Package Control under the name AsciiDoc.

Installation (Manual)

To install the package manually, follow these steps:

• Download the zip containing src files.
• Extract the files to AsciiDoc folder (create this folder if not present already) under:
  • Windows: %APPDATA%\Sublime Text 3\Packages\
    
  • OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages
  • Linux: ~/.config/sublime-text-3/Packages
  • Portable Installation: Sublime Text 2/Data
    
• Close all instances of Sublime Text and relaunch the editor.
  

If successful, you should see AsciiDoc entry under View > Syntax and under Tools > Snippets.

Note: Snippets may take few seconds to load under Windows.

Configure Variables: TM_FULLNAME, TM_EMAIL, etc.

The Article snippet refers to certain variables that are styled after the TextMate standard for environment variables (as do other features of Sublime). These variables are configured via the Default.tmPreferences file.

1. Edit Default.tmPreferences
2. Replace “My Full Name”, “My Email”, and “My Company” with your actual name, email address, and company name.
3. Update the defintion of TM_YEAR (currently 2013) if necessary.
4. Test the Article snippet (create a new AsciiDoc file, type “ar” and hit Tab).

Configure the AsciiDoc Build System

Sublime has a build system for compiling source code, in this case, AsciiDoc source. A file called asciidoc.sublime-build is provided here to allow you to take advantage of the build system, but it needs to be told where you have installed Python and AsciiDoc:

1. Edit asciidoc.sublime-build
2. Change the working_dir from “/path/to/asciidoc-8.6.8” to the actual location where you have AsciiDoc installed (e.g. “C:\prgs\asciidoc-8.6.8”)
3. Change the first parameter of cmd from “/path/to/python” to actual name and location of your Python engine (e.g. “C:\Python27\python.exe”)
4. Note: See below about ctrl+b no longer being the shortcut key for the buld system.

Usage

• Create a new file, save it as <filename>.asc
• Start typing AsciiDoc!

Snippets

Snippets can be inserted anywhere by using the menu command Tools > Snippets > AsciiDoc or by typing two initial characters and hitting tab to complete. A few tab completion examples are:

• Start a new article (type ar TAB)
• Comments (type // TAB)
• Headings (type h1 TAB to h4 TAB for one-liner versions)
• Table generation (type |= TAB)
• Tab expansion for blocks (type == TAB)
  
• Sidebar block (type ** TAB)
• Add a definition to a glossary (type :: TAB)
• Refer to a glossary definition elsewhere (type << TAB)

Article:: When you first invoke the Article snippet, “Title” will be highlighted. Type over it with the actual title you want. (Notice that the new title will be automatically underlined to length.) Hit tab to move off the title, and the backend choices will be highlighted. These are only the 3 most popular backends. Either delete 2 of them, or type over the whole thing with a 4th choice (e.g. manpage). Hit tab to move to the end.

Definition and Definition Link:: Use these to create glossary definitions with anchors and corresponding references to them. Note how the anchor tags will be automatically composed as you type the name of the term being defined, and also how any non-alphanumeric characters are automatically left out of the tag.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Basic support for some handy shortcuts are now available:

• Bold selection: Select some text and then press ctrl+b
• _Italic_ize selection: Select some text and then press ctrl+i
• Mark selection as Code literal: Select some text and then press ctrl+k, ctrl+k
• Mark selection as filename: Select some text and then press ctrl+k, ctrl+f

Note: ctrl+b overrides the standard key binding of Tools > Build System. If this bothers you, you can edit the .sublime-keymap files (based on your OS) under Packages\AsciiDoc folder.

Time permitting, I'll add more shortcuts but meanwhile if you come upon something useful, feel free to submit a patch!

Enhancements

Following are planned enhancements for the package:

• Add keyboard shortcuts for various commands such bold text, italics, blocks etc.
• Adding Build system to preview as HTML or PDF.

Your suggestions are welcome.

Author & Credits

Created by Hrusikesh Panda. Copy left or right, as you wish.

Credit goes to Christian Zuckschwerdt for his original work on AsciiDoc TextMate bundle.

The Article, Definition, and Definition Link snippets were written by Craig Jones.