Rewrite HighlightedTextControl and remove HighlightedText #19130

DHowett · 2025-07-14T16:43:25Z

This has been on my list for a while.

HighlightedTextControl is a XAML user control that contains a text
block and takes vector of HighlightedText. HighlightedText uses
tuples (string, boolean). Allocating an entire object to store a
string and an integer felt like a waste, especially when we were doing
it thousands of times for the command palette and just to pass them
into another object that stores a string and a few more integers
(Run).

The new HighlightedTextControl is a standard templated control, and
supports styling of both the inner text block and of the highlighted
runs.

It no longer takes a HighlightedText, but rather a standard string and
a set of runs (tuple (int start, int end)); these can be stored more
efficiently, and this change moves the construction of text and runs
directly into HighlightedTextControl itself as an implementation
detail rather than an API contract.

XAML Properties

Text: the string to highlight
HighlightedRuns: a vector of (start, end) pairs, indicating which
regions are intended to be highlighted. Can be empty (which indicates
there is no highlight and that the entire string is styled normally.)
TextBlockStyle: the Style applied to the inner text block;
optional; allows consumers to change how both normal and highlighted
text looks.
HighlightedRunStyle: a Style applied only to the highlighted runs;
optional; allows consumers to change how highlighted text looks. If
left NULL, highlighted runs will be bold.

HighlightedRunStyle is a little bodgy. It only applies to Run
objects (which is fine, and XAML somewhat supports), but since Run is
not a FrameworkElement, it doesn't actually have a Style member.
We need to crack open the style and apply it manually, entry by entry.
FontWeight is special because XAML is a special little flower.

DHowett · 2025-07-14T17:39:13Z

The new TextBlockStyle lets you do this (the subtitle is a second HighlightedTextControl):

... and the new HighlightedRunStyle lets you do that (the runs are styled using a style; we actually don't want ugly underlined red, but it proves it works):

/cc @e82eric since he's been working in this space

src/cascadia/TerminalApp/HighlightedTextControl.cpp

DHowett

comments inline

DHowett · 2025-07-14T17:41:46Z

src/cascadia/TerminalApp/HighlightedTextControl.cpp

+                    Documents::Run run;
+                    run.Text(matchSeg);
+
+                    if (runStyle)


nit: could [[unlikely]] this

Don't worry about likely/unlikely too much. It's only a super subtle hint to the optimizer after all.

DHowett · 2025-07-14T17:42:27Z

src/cascadia/TerminalApp/HighlightedTextControl.cpp

+            if (lastPos < text.size())
+            {
+                // checking lastPos here prevents a needless deep copy of the whole text in the no-match case
+                hstring tail{ lastPos == 0 ? text : hstring{ til::safe_slice_abs(text, lastPos, SIZE_T_MAX) } };


nit: in general in this file, I should document WHY WE HAVE TEMPORARY HSTRINGS. i had to rediscover it for myself.

DHowett · 2025-07-14T17:42:45Z

src/cascadia/TerminalApp/HighlightedTextControl.idl

-        HighlightedText Text;
-        Windows.UI.Xaml.Controls.TextBlock TextView { get; };    
+
+        IVector<HighlightedRun> HighlightedRuns;


these feel so much better than object pointers, and have much better locality. also no AddRef and Release a jillion times.

DHowett · 2025-07-14T17:43:09Z

src/cascadia/TerminalApp/HighlightedTextControlStyle.xaml

+                    xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
+                    mc:Ignorable="d">
+
+    <Style TargetType="local:HighlightedTextControl">


if we had a good way to roll up XAML resources, this could go down to microsoft.terminal.ui and be used everywhere

DHowett · 2025-07-14T17:43:34Z

src/cascadia/TerminalApp/SnippetsPaneContent.xaml


                        <local:HighlightedTextControl Grid.Column="1"
                                                      HorizontalAlignment="Left"
+                                                      HighlightedRuns="{x:Bind FilteredCommand.NameHighlights, Mode=OneWay}"


Ergonomically: I don't love that it's two properties, but man it makes the code so much simpler

DHowett · 2025-07-14T17:44:23Z

src/cascadia/inc/cppwinrt_utils.h

+            return winrt::unbox_value<type>(temp);                                            \
+        }                                                                                     \
+                                                                                              \
+        if constexpr (std::is_same_v<type, winrt::hstring>)                                   \


this is actually necessary because you can't unbox IInspectable nullptr as a hstring without exploding. And we do want the property to be nullable.

This is a strictly better version of the one that lives in TerminalSettingsEditor, and supersedes it, so it can live here.

src/cascadia/LocalTests_TerminalApp/FilteredCommandTests.cpp

carlos-zamora

Big fan of moving the dependency property macro to a shared spot. Happy that we'll be able to use that everywhere now.

Love that we can pass in special styling in the new control. Using the ranges makes sense too! Nice work :)

src/cascadia/TerminalApp/HighlightedTextControl.cpp

src/cascadia/TerminalApp/FilteredCommand.cpp

src/cascadia/TerminalApp/App.xaml

src/cascadia/TerminalApp/HighlightedTextControl.cpp

The bulk of this work is changing `Command::Name` (and its descendants like `GenerateName`) to support looking up names in English and in the local language. When matching a "palette item" with a "subtitle" (a new field introduced to store the English command name when the current language is not English), the weight of the subtitle is used only if it is greater than the weight of the name. This ensures that we do not penalize or over-promote results that contain similar Latin letters in both fields. Refs #19130, #19131, #19132, #19165 Closes #7039

DHowett and others added 3 commits July 14, 2025 11:36

WIP: Convert HighlightedTextControl to a templated control

c5e7e1c

Murder HighlightedText

af8fb74

Allow HTC consumer to style runs with a Style

5e818d0

DHowett changed the title ~~WIP: Convert HighlightedTextControl to a templated control and do a bunch of other stuff too~~ Rewrite HighlightedTextControl, remove HighlightedText Jul 14, 2025

DHowett changed the title ~~Rewrite HighlightedTextControl, remove HighlightedText~~ Rewrite HighlightedTextControl and remove HighlightedText Jul 14, 2025

DHowett commented Jul 14, 2025

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DHowett commented Jul 14, 2025

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And fix the tests

23cf539

github-advanced-security bot found potential problems Jul 14, 2025

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src/cascadia/LocalTests_TerminalApp/FilteredCommandTests.cpp Fixed Show fixed Hide fixed

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quiet speel

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carlos-zamora approved these changes Jul 14, 2025

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lhecker approved these changes Jul 14, 2025

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DHowett added 2 commits July 14, 2025 14:57

Add comments, annotate, fix x86

a881524

This belongs to a different pr...

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lhecker approved these changes Jul 14, 2025

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DHowett enabled auto-merge (squash) July 14, 2025 20:24

DHowett merged commit 0cbb6b1 into main Jul 14, 2025
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DHowett deleted the dev/duhowett/better-high-text-control branch July 14, 2025 20:40

DHowett mentioned this pull request Jul 23, 2025

Filter the Command Palette in English in addition to locale #19166

Merged

Rewrite HighlightedTextControl and remove HighlightedText #19130

Rewrite HighlightedTextControl and remove HighlightedText #19130

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DHowett commented Jul 14, 2025 •

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