Editor Enhancements

ncl.el: emacs

Emacs NCL mode screenshot

Functionality includes:

• Indents two spaces between "begin" and "end" statments
• Indents two spaces within "do" loops and "if" statments
• Comment handling (M-;)
  • insert a comment at the end of the current line
  • Alternatively comment/uncomment selected region
• Highlighting (chose your colors)
  • NCL keywords
  • All documented gsn plotting functions
  • All documented NCL built-in functions
  • All documented contributed functions
  • All documented Shea_util functions
  • Comments
  • All documented graphics resources

Issues that remain

• Comment Handling does not work in xemacs
• Comments may not fontify on file open in xemacs

Controlling your emacs window:
Add and modify the following to your .Xdefaults if desired:

    Emacs.geometry:         80x38+250+10
    Emacs*background:       antique white
    Emacs*foreground:       black
    Emacs.pane.menubar.background: peachpuff
    Emacs.menu*.background: peachpuff
    Emacs.cursorColor:      red3
    Emacs.font:             10x20
    Emacs.pane.menubar.font: 10x20
    

Steps

• Download the ncl.el file and put it on your system.
• Put the following text in your .emacs file: (note, if you do not like the specified colors, you can change them here or not include this portion in your .emacs file)

    (setq auto-mode-alist (cons '("\.ncl$" . ncl-mode) auto-mode-alist))

    ; this line associates ncl-mode with the lisp package that defines it.
    (autoload 'ncl-mode "~/bin/ncl.el")  

    ; a hook is a list of functions that get executed under certain 
    ; conditions. 
    (add-hook 'ncl-mode-hook
       (lambda ()  ; lambda is an anonymous function. e.g. has no name.
    ; highlight comments
        (set-face-foreground font-lock-comment-face "FireBrick")
    ; highlight strings
        (set-face-foreground font-lock-string-face "Salmon")
    ; highlight keywords, array descriptors, and tests
        (set-face-foreground font-lock-keyword-face "Purple")
    ; highlight built-in functions
        (set-face-foreground font-lock-builtin-face "Blue")
    ; highlight gsn* functions
        (set-face-foreground font-lock-variable-name-face "SteelBlue")
    ; highlight shea_util and contributed functions
        (set-face-foreground font-lock-function-name-face  "CadetBlue") 
    ; highlight resources        
        (set-face-foreground font-lock-constant-face  "ForestGreen")
         )
    )
    

• Change ~/bin/ncl.el to the location of YOUR ncl.el file
• Modify the ncl.el code as necessary to include functions or keywords not specifically listed

The Emacs NCL mode was first implemented by Sylvia Murphy at NCAR. Updates have been provided by Heiko Klein of Norway, Carl Schreck and Alan Srock of the University at Albany (SUNY), and Thierry Corti of ETH in Zurich, Switzerland.

ncl.nedit / ncl2.nedit / ncl3.nedit:Various files for nedit

The following scripts enable NCL syntax highlighting in nedit versions 5.1.0 and higher. The scripts range from a minimalistic approach with few highlighting schemes and few colors, to a more thorough highlighting scheme with many colors. The scripts can be downloaded and, if desired, edited and tested. When ready you can import the file into nedit by typing, for example:

    nedit -import ncl.edit

You will only have to import the file once. Go to "Preferences" and click on "Save Defaults".

• ncl.nedit -a minimalistic approach, keywords and flow constructs are in bold-black, comments are plain-red and symbols are highlighted in bold-blue (courtesy of Dennis Shea)

• ncl2.nedit - a more moderate highlighting scheme that highlights attributes, I/O functions (among others) (courtesy of Adam Phillips)

• ncl3.nedit - an intensive syntax highlighting approach that highlights most NCL functions (courtesy of Paul Thomas Quelet). Updated periodically by volunteers to reflect new syntax or functions.

ncl.vim / ncl2.vim / ncl.dic : Various files for vim

Steps

• Download the desired .vim file [naming it ncl.vim] and put it in your .vim/syntax directory
• Put the following text in your .vimrc file

    au BufRead,BufNewFile *.ncl set filetype=ncl
    au! Syntax newlang source $VIM/ncl.vim 

• ncl1.vim -a simple approach (courtesy of Kevin Mueller [UIUC])

• ncl2.vim - extensive highlighting of functions through v5.0.0 with some v5.1.0 functions included. (courtesy of Arindam Chakraborty [Indian Institute of Science])

The following was donated by Prince K. Xavier [Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique, France].

I experimented a bit with the VIM to include an auto-completion option for NCL commands. I think I have some good news for those who do not want to remember all the commands or consult the website often while writing a script! I find it particularly useful! Here is what you have to do.

1. save ncl.dic to ~/.vim/dictionary/

   (I took the commands from the ncl syntax file compiled by Arindam Chakraborty. I am not sure how complete this list is, but one can always add entries to this file.)

2. make the following entries to your .gvimrc

   "Show autocomplete menus.
   set complete-=k complete+=k " Add dictionary search (as per dictionary option)
   set wildmode=list:full
   set wildmenu
   au BufRead,BufNewFile *.ncl set dictionary=~/.vim/dictionary/ncl.dic
   

3. open your .ncl file and start typing the first letter of the command/resource/function name and press 'control+n' and choose your option.

   Here is a screenshot of my editor that works great!

ncl.sl : JED

This script was contributed by TJ Olney of Western Washington University, for use with John E Davis's JED editor.

The latest version (June 1, 2011) has been updated to work with NCL V6.0.0, and should be used with version 99.19 of jed.

JED is a freely available text editor for Unix, VMS, MSDOS, OS/2, BeOS, QNX, and win9X/NT platforms. Although it is a powerful editor designed for use by programmers, its drop-down menu facility make it one of the friendliest text editors around. Hence it is ideal for composing simple email messages as well as editing complex programs in a variety of computer languages.

JED makes extensive use of the S-Lang library, which endows it with a powerful S-Lang macro language. This and other features of the library are discussed on the features page.

To incorporate this syntax in your JED environment, add the lines from the ncl.sl to your "defaults.sl" or "jed.rc" (.jedrc) file. The instructions are also in the file.

NCL.tmbundle.zip : TextMate

This script was contributed by Ryan Pavlick of the Biospheric Theory and Modelling Group at Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry.

To install the file, unzip the "NCL.tmbundle.zip" file, double click "NCL.tmbundle", and restart TextMate if it is open. If that doesn't work, try opening a Terminal window and enter the following two commands:

  mkdir -p ~/Library/Application\ Support/TextMate/Bundles/
  cp NCL.tmbundle ~/Library/Application\ Support/TextMate/Bundles/

then restart TextMate.

ncl_gedit_xml.tgz : gedit

This configuration was contributed by Chad Herman.

To install, unwrap the ncl_gedit_xml.tgz tarball in some convenient directory, cd into the ncl_gedit_xml directory and run the install.sh bash script as follows:

    # Install for gedit 2.x
    ./install.sh 2

    # Install for gedit 3.x
    ./install.sh 3

The tarball and ncl_gedit_xml directory can be deleted after the installation.

Chad writes:

Gedit should now recognise and highlight your *.ncl files. If you start gedit in the terminal, you'll see a *warning*:

(gedit:6532): GtkSourceView-WARNING **: Cannot create a regex for all the
transitions, the syntax highlighting process will be slower than usual.
The error was: Error while compiling regular expression ...

This is nothing to worry about. This started showing up after I added all of the "resource" names (all 1,452 of them). NCL is a big language!

For MacOS X users with an official binary of gedit, Rob Nicholas of the Dept. of Geosciences at Penn State University advises:

...for those of you using the official Mac OS X binary for gedit, you'll need to change line 57 of the install script to:

sudo cp ncl.lang \
  /Applications/gedit.app/Contents/Resources/share/gtksourceview-2.0/language-specs

Rob further notes that this does not apply to users who obtained gedit through Fink or MacPorts.

ncl.el: aquamacs

This editor enhancement for Aquamacs was contributed by Luis C. Cana Cascallar of the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

Aquamacs NCL mode screenshot

Aquamacs (see http://aquamacs.org) is a free editor based on the GNU Emacs but with a deep integration in Mac OSX. These are the steps following some recommendations of David Reiter, the main developer and maintainer of Aquamacs:

1. Download ncl.el file (the same for Emacs) and put it on the system.

   David Reiter's suggestion: /YOUR-HOME-DIRECTORY/Library/Application Support/Aquamacs Emacs

2. Add the following piece of code in /YOUR-HOME-DIRECTORY/Library/Preferences/Aquamacs Emacs/Preferences.el

;=======================
 (setq auto-mode-alist (cons '("\.ncl$" . ncl-mode) auto-mode-alist))

 ; This line associates ncl-mode with the lisp package that defines it.
 (autoload 'ncl-mode "/YOUR-HOME-DIRECTORY/Library/Application Support/Aquamacs Emacs/ncl.el")  ; <<<<<<<< pointing to the right place

 ; a hook is a list of functions that get executed under certain
 ; conditions.
 (add-hook 'ncl-mode-hook
        (lambda ()  ; lambda is an anonymous function. e.g. has no name.
 ; highlight comments
         (set-face-foreground font-lock-comment-face "FireBrick")
 ; highlight strings
         (set-face-foreground font-lock-string-face "Salmon")
 ; highlight keywords, array descriptors, and tests
         (set-face-foreground font-lock-keyword-face "Purple")
 ; highlight built-in functions
         (set-face-foreground font-lock-builtin-face "Blue")
 ; highlight gsn* functions
         (set-face-foreground font-lock-variable-name-face "SteelBlue")
 ; highlight shea_util and contributed functions
         (set-face-foreground font-lock-function-name-face  "CadetBlue")
 ; highlight resources
         (set-face-foreground font-lock-constant-face  "ForestGreen")
          )
     )
 ;====================================

And that's all! If there is any problem, one should check first which is the Major Mode:

Mode Line (at bottom of screen).

M-x ncl-mode RET                 will enter the mode manually

Another possibility is just adding to the FIRST LINE of the ncl script this single line:

;  -*- mode: ncl;-*-

This trick switches the mode to NCL.

Robert Schuster has written a NetBeans plugin that supports NCL script development. It features:

• Syntax highlighting and checking.
• Code completion for all NCL procedures functions and resources: type the first few letters followed by CTRL-SPACE to get a list of all procedures/functions/resources that begin with those letters.
• Displays online documentation in conjunction with code completion.
• NCL project management: develop, manage and run ncl scripts from within the NetBeans IDE.

Netbeans is freely available for Unix/Linux, MacOS X, and Windows machines. See the NetBeans site for more information.

NCL.plist: TextWrangler

The editor enhancement for TextWrangler was contributed by Emilie Vanvyve of NCAR/RAL. It highlights NCL resources, functions, procedures, and keywords. The file should be put in the directory $HOME/Library/Application Support/TextWrangler/Language Modules.

ncl.xml: Kate

Kate NCL mode screenshot

The editor enhancement for Kate was contributed by Raul Valenzuela, a graduate student in the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Program at the University of Colorado. It highlights NCL keywords, functions, contributed functions, gsn_code functions, gsn_csm_functions, comments, strings, and metadata markers (@, !, &).

The file should be put in the directory /usr/share/kde4/apps/katepart/syntax.