This plugin allows you to browse the Unicode character set. The character set is organized into various groupings to help make it easier to find the character you need. Search capabilities also allow you to find characters by code or name using regular expressions. You can also enter a character into an editor in 1 of 10 formats.
Use IDEA's plugin manager to install the latest version of the plugin.
Simply open the Character Browser tool window to begin using the plugin. The
interface includes a series of drop down lists to help organize the various
characters.
- Blocks - Scripts:
This contains two levels of subgroups that organize the characters into
various language groups. This list is derived from
http://www.unicode.org/charts/index.html
- Blocks - Symbols and Punctuation:
This contains two levels of subgroups that organize the characters into
various types of symbols and punctuation. This list is derived from
http://www.unicode.org/charts/symbols.html
- Character Categories:
This contains one level of organization that divides the characters into
categories such as upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, etc.
The set of categories are derived from
http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/UCD.html#General_Category_Values
One additional category has been added - those containing HTML named
entities.
- Alphabetic Index:
This is broken down into 26 index entries A - Z based on the character
names. Most characters are listed twice in the index, once under its
raw name and once under its index name. Example: The character 'A' is named
"LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A". This is listed under 'L'. The character is also
listed under its index name of "A, LATIN CAPITAL LETTER".
- Code Pages:
This is a simple break down of the 65535 (0xFFFF) characters into 16 groups
of 16 groups of 256 characters each. Not all codes are mapped to a character
so some pages are partial or completely empty.
- Search Results:
This type appears after you perform the first search. Each search you
perform becomes a new page under this type so you may see the results from
previous searches.
Pressing the Search button presents a simple dialog that allows you to search
for a character by name or by code.
Enter a valid Java regular expression (as defined in java.util.regex.Pattern)
in the name field to search for all matching characters. Example: Enter
'tilde' to find all characters that have a tilde (~). To avoid returning too
matches any time you enter a single character name it will be treated as if you
entered '\bx\b' where 'x' is the character you enter. This is useful to find
forms of the letter 'A' for example.
Each name search will have a new entry added into the search results. The entry
will be labled 'Name: <expression>'.
Enter a character code in either hex, decimal, or octal. Only one value can be
entered. Just enter the raw value with no special prefix such as '0x' for hex
values.
Each code search will have a new entry added into the search results. The entry
will be labeled 'Code: <code>'.
Pressing the Cursor button will perform a search for the character at the
cursor in the current text editor. The search results will include the actual
character at the cursor plus it may include other calculated characters based
on coded characters around the cursor. For example, if you have a line of text
in an HTML file such as:
Copyright © 2005
and the cursor is located anywhere within the '©' part of the line, then
the search results will also include the actual copyright character (U+00A9).
The following coded formats are recognized:
- Hex code (0xFFFF)
- Decimal code (1234)
- Octal code (0123)
- Unicode Copy Point (U+FFFF)
- Java Unicode Escape (\uFFFF)
- Java Octal Character Escape (\123)
- HTML Named Entity (©)
- HTML Decimal Coded Entity (©)
Each time you press the Cursor button a new entry will be added into the search
results. The entry will be labeled 'Selection: <text>' where <text> is a portion
of the line containing the cursor. The location of the cursor will be shown in
inverse colors.
Whenever you select a character in a table you can see its various forms in the
Character Detail section. Each representation is displayed on a button. Pressing
a button inserts the corresponding text into the current text editor at the
cursor location. If there is a selection in the editor then the selected text is
replaced with the text.
The details displayed are:
This is simply the character code in the three basic number formats.
This is a fancy name for the character's code in the form U+xxxx where xxxx is
the four character hex value of the code. Four hex digits are always used, left
filled with zeros as needed.
This is the official name of the Unicode character as defined at
http://www.unicode.org
This is the character displayed as an actual character. The font used for the
button is the same font used in the editor so you can see how the character
will look in the editor. Many characters are not represented by the editor's
font and will typically appear as a small square.
This is the standard Java Unicode escape sequence of the form \uxxxx.
If the selected character is in the range 0x00 to 0xFF then the Java octal
character literal is displayed in the form \xxx.
HTML Named Entity
If the selected character has a corresponding HTML entity as defined at
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/entities.html then the named entity is
displayed.
HTML Decimal Entity
An HTML decimal entity is of the form &#x; where x is the decimal value of the
character.
The list of characters in a table display the character's code in hex, the
character's official name, and the character itself as best displayed by the
editor's font.
The columns of the table are sortable by clicking on the column headers.
Clicking on a column twice reverses the sort order of the column.
Pressing and holding down the Ctrl key while moving the mouse cursor around in
an editor will display a hyperlink and information window whenever the cursor
is over any valid character representation in one of the 10 supported formats
(except for simple characters).
Clicking the left mouse button while a link is displayed will perform the same
function as pressing the Cursor button with the caret in the same location as
the mouse click.
Please see the topic CharacterBrowserDev?, any feedback is welcome 
Related Topics: PluginDevelopmentHowTo, PluginDocumentation, PluginANTScript, OpenAPI, IntellijPluginDocumentation, PluginDeployment, IdeasForPlugins
-- RickMaddy - 20 Dec 2005
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