Description David Pletcher 2004-10-17 03:44:52 EDT

It would be potentially quite useful if the JDT UI would visually indicate the
extent of nested scope blocks using subtle background coloration.  Leaving aside
the moral issue that vast and ungainly blocks of code make for unmaintainable
programs, I've often been compelled to hunt up and down through pages of poorly
formatted code I didn't write, searching for the beginning or end of a block, or
for a stray mismatched brace character.  I have never seen this feature
implemented before, but I believe it could be very useful.

I've contemplated several possible coloration strategies:
1) simple alternation through a palette of colors based on the indentation level
2) like 1, but with colored bands growing from the left showing parent levels
3) cycling through varied colors for successive blocks at the same indentation level

I'll attach my primitive attempts at rendering strategies 1 through 3.  My
skills as a graphic artist preclude me from doing a really good job at that; in
particular, my coloration blocks don't extend properly from each opening brace
to the corresponding closing brace.  Nonetheless, I believe they get the point
across.

Thanks for giving this idea some thought!