About Color Coding (Visual LISP IDE)

Visual LISP uses color coding to help identify elements entered in the Console and text editor windows.

Note: The Visual LISP IDE is available on Windows only.

Elements entered might be a built-in AutoLISP function, number, or string. Color coding makes it easier to detect missing quotes or misspelled function names.

The Visual LISP text editor provides color coding for AutoLISP, DCL, SQL, and C++ language source files. The color coding used in the Console and text editor windows is determined by a file's type, which is based on the file’s extension. You can change the color coding style associated with a file type by clicking Tools Window Attributes Syntax Coloring from the Visual LISP menu bar. All text entered in the Console window is treated as AutoLISP code.

The default color scheme is shown in the following table.

Default color coding scheme for AutoLISP code

Color

AutoLISP language element

Blue

Built-in functions and protected symbols

Magenta

Strings

Green

Integers

Teal

Real numbers

Magenta, on gray background

Comments

Red

Parentheses

Black

Unrecognized items (for example, user variables)

The following coding example shows the advantages of using color coding to identify errors in AutoLISP code.

The previous illustration shows an AutoLISP program with standard color coding applied. With the color coding applied, you can identify the following problems: