VMT syntax for Notepad++

Simple syntax highlighting and even auto-complete. This is mainly done to prevent situations where you check every fucking letter in such parameters, like "normalmapalphaenvmapmask" and "animatedtextureframenumvar".

Documentation

It's required to turn on the built-in quotation marks autocompletion feature for the syntax highlighting to work properly.

Hot feature: Swiftly comment/uncomment lines with "CTRL + Q" shortcut.

Colour Map:

• Light blue = recognized $ parameter.
• Pink = recognized % parameter or Proxy.
• Green with black bg = recognized shader.
• Light yellow = "word in quotation marks".
• Dark gray italic = NOT recognized word and which is not in quotation marks.

_dx8, _dx6, _dx7, _dx81 and x360 stuff is not included on purpose. Those are super legacy fallbacks, nobody needs them and nobody wants to fuck with them really.

Technical: This addon was made using an elaborate script and some manual input. This means it contains absolutely every possible parameter from every source game ever (except DOD:S)

Install

Download the following 2 files (Make sure not to change names!):

• Go to Notepad++
• Click "Define your language" in the toolbar
• Click "Import"
• Locate the vmt_syntax.xml file downloaded earlier and choose it
• Go to the folder Notepad++ is installed at (usually C:\Program Files\Notepad++)
• Locate autoCompletion folder. Create if necessary
• Place the vmt_mrk.xml file downloaded earlier into that folder.
• Restart Notepad++ and re-open any .vmt files you may have had opened

Hover the download links to see the last update date.

Technical

This addon contains parameters from the following games:

• Half-Life 2 and episodes
• Black Mesa
• Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop
• Team Fortress 2
• Left 4 Dead 2
• Portal
• Portal 2
• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

The VMT files from the games listed above were scanned for $ and % parameters, excluding VMTs which have proxies in them.

Then, the following stuff was added from manually created lists:

• Proxy names
• Proxy key names
• Shaders
• Surface properties
• Some genuine $ parameters, that are only present in VMTs with proxies in them, such as "CloakPassEnabled"

Finally, the resulting lists were quickly skipped through manually to create a blacklist of words, like "NormalMapAlphaEnvMapMas", "keyworkds" and so on.

Everything that was used to create this addon can be found here, including all the lists, script and so on. It's totally possible to use the script mentioned above to create a customized version of this addon. (The link above points to the same repository this website is served from).