Efficient way of drawing syntax highlighting

[LoganDark 8]

I'm working on a new text editor (from scratch) that will do syntax highlighting on Lua code. I have a proper lexer all ready to go and I'm ready to start on the actual application, but I don't want to skimp on one of the best features: syntax highlighting!

I'm looking for a quick and efficient way of drawing syntax highlighting, aka multicolored text. I'm not sure if there's anything more efficient than gpu.setForeground then gpu.set repeatedly, but if there is, I'd like to know! And if there isn't, I'd also like to know.

[LoganDark 8]

Okay, thank you!

I searched everywhere for some sort of double buffering API, but couldn't find it on the forums.

I'll be sure to check it out

[Piorjade 2]

The most efficient way that I know of would probably be double buffering. (The reason for that being the fact that direct GPU calls like set or setForeground take a certain amount of time depending on the tier and a good double buffering API has an algorithm that minimizes the amount of GPU calls)

On the other hand I don't know if that's actually necessary for a text editor.

[Molinko 43]

I think Piorjade makes a good point about double buffering, the only things I would add are to abuse GPU.copy, and to batch color setting calls as much as possible.

[Ta©ti Tac0Z 2]

yeah use double buffering once and you'll never make a program without it again

just use double buffering, problem sovled

i have it as a bookmark at this point : the magical double buffering api