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The built-in markdown editor has a "live-preview" for code blocks without open a side previewer.
I was looking for a list of supported language highlight, which as I understand is defined by highlight.js supported language.

I need to add some "ssh config files" in my markdown, but

  1. when I use properties language tag, only side previewer shows the highlight, not the editor itself
  2. when I try with a weird "s" language alias, the editor can detect the comments and non-alphabetic characters. But the side previewer shows nothing...

VSCode screenshot:

My questions:

  1. "s" is not defined as an alias in highlight.js, then how come the editor can detect the language?
  2. Why the editor and previewer do not have the same highlight behavior?
  3. I prefer to have the correct highlight in editor, which language/alias should I use in place of "properties"?
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  • Please don't post screenshots of text. They can't be searched or copied, or even consumed by users of adaptive technologies like screen readers. Instead, paste the code as text directly into your question. If you select it and click the {} button or Ctrl+K the code block will be indented by four spaces, which will cause it to be rendered as code. In this case the screenshot is helpful, but code would also be very helpful. Commented Mar 8, 2022 at 18:50

2 Answers 2

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Summarizing previous comments and answers here:

  • VScode markdown "in-editor" code highlight use "markdown-basic" extension, with a list of supported languages in this file
  • The "alias" for different languages are "hidden" in the regex of each block definition. for example for R language the alias is R|r|s|S|Rprofile|\\{\\.r.+?\\}. (I extract a complete list of aliases from the source codes and it is shown below)
  • More specifically for what I want, i.e. key-value pair config file equivalent to properties in highlight.js, there is no exact the same in "markdown-basic", so I will use conf.
  • Developer: Inspect Editor Tokens and Scopes helps a lot when you see a unfamiliar alias and want to know what it is

List of code block languages aliases for "markdown-basic":

bat|batch 
bibtex 
c|h 
clj|cljs|clojure 
coffee|Cakefile|coffee.erb 
COMMIT_EDITMSG|MERGE_MSG 
cpp|c\\+\\+|cxx 
cs|csharp|c# 
css|css.erb 
dart 
dockerfile|Dockerfile 
elixir 
erlang 
fs|fsharp|f# 
git-rebase-todo 
go|golang 
groovy|gvy 
handlebars|hbs 
html|htm|shtml|xhtml|inc|tmpl|tpl 
ini|conf 
jade|pug 
java|bsh 
js|jsx|javascript|es6|mjs|cjs|\\{\\.js.+?\\} 
json|json5|sublime-settings|sublime-menu|sublime-keymap|sublime-mousemap|sublime-theme|sublime-build|sublime-project|sublime-completions 
jsonc 
latex|tex 
less 
log 
lua 
Makefile|makefile|GNUmakefile|OCamlMakefile 
markdown|md 
objectivec|objective-c|mm|objc|obj-c|m|h 
patch|diff|rej 
perl|pl|pm|pod|t|PL|psgi|vcl 
perl6|p6|pl6|pm6|nqp 
php|php3|php4|php5|phpt|phtml|aw|ctp 
powershell|ps1|psm1|psd1 
python|py|py3|rpy|pyw|cpy|SConstruct|Sconstruct|sconstruct|SConscript|gyp|gypi|\\{\\.python.+?\\} 
R|r|s|S|Rprofile|\\{\\.r.+?\\} 
re 
regexp 
ruby|rb|rbx|rjs|Rakefile|rake|cgi|fcgi|gemspec|irbrc|Capfile|ru|prawn|Cheffile|Gemfile|Guardfile|Hobofile|Vagrantfile|Appraisals|Rantfile|Berksfile|Berksfile.lock|Thorfile|Puppetfile 
rust|rs|\\{\\.rust.+?\\} 
scala|sbt 
scss 
shell|sh|bash|zsh|bashrc|bash_profile|bash_login|profile|bash_logout|.textmate_init|\\{\\.bash.+?\\} 
sql|ddl|dml 
swift 
tsx 
typescript|ts 
vb 
xml|xsd|tld|jsp|pt|cpt|dtml|rss|opml 
xsl|xslt 
yaml|yml
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Comments

1

I don't believe VSCode's native syntax highlighting has anything to do with highlight.js. It is provided by language-specific extensions, some of which ship with the editor.

In this case, VSCode is using its built-in R mode for that code block. You can see the language being used via Developer: Inspect Editor Tokens and Scopes in the command palette. R is an open-source implementation of the language S, so this makes sense.

The Markdown preview, on the other hand, may well use highlight.js and you are right that s is meaningless there.

I don't see a good language code to use in your code fence, but will update this answer if I find one.

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3 Comments

For anyone wondering how to check the language: Ctrl+Shift+P -> Developer: Inspect Editor Tokens and Scopes
Thanks, @HolyBlackCat! I dug around a bit but wasn't able to find that. VSCode is indeed using R for that code block. Just edited the answer to be more firm on that point.
Thanks for your answers! you are right @Chris, the built-in preview is based on markdown-basic extension in vscode, with the list of supported language here

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