HowTo:Configure your favorite text editor to work with POV-Ray

POV-Ray supporting text editors

Windows

• Qwined
• SciTE

Linux

• eclipse with povclipse plugin
• neXtgen Povray Editor
• KPovModeler
• Kate

Instructions

SciTE on Windows

Syntax highlighting is already supported by default. However, POV-Ray is missing from some of the menus. To fix this:

1. Select the "Options" menu. Select "Open Global Options File". A text file with a bunch of SciTE configuration settings will open in the editor window.
2. Scroll to the section that starts with:

   The open.filter setting is used in the file selector which has a menu of filters to apply

   Add the common POV-Ray file extensions to the list. These include the POV, INC, INI and MCR extensions. On my system the section now looks like this:

source.files=*.asm;*.c;*.cc;*.cpp;*.cxx;*.cs;*.h;*.hh;*.hxx;*.hpp;\
*.idl;*.odl;*.rc;*.rc2;*.dlg;*.def;\
*.vb;*.vbs;*.bas;*.frm;*.cls;*.ctl;\
*.java;*.js;*.py;*.pl;*.rb;*.cgi;*.lua;*.conf;\
make*;*.mak;\
*.properties;*.html;*.xml;*.iface;*.bat;*.el;*.pov;*.inc;*.ini;*.mcr

1. After restarting SciTE Povray source files should now be listed in the "Open File", "Save File", etc. dialogs.
2. Scroll to the section labeled "Define the Lexer menu". Uncomment the line that reads:

   #P&OV-Ray SDL|pov||\

3. After restarting SciTE Povray should now appear in the "Language" menu.

To set up SciTE to send files to POV-Ray for rendering:

1. Select the "Options" menu. Select "Open pov.properties". A text file with POV-Ray-specific configuration settings will open in the editor window.
2. Scroll down to where it says:

   command.compile.*.pov=pvengine.exe $(FileName)

   Change the file path to reflect the location of your POV-Ray installation. On my system it was:

   command.compile.*.pov=C:\Users\Nimda\AppData\Roaming\POV-Ray\v3.6\bin\pvengine64.exe $(FileName)

3. Do the same for where it says:

   command.go.*.pov=pvengine.exe $(FileName)

   On my system it ended up being:

   command.go.*.pov=C:\Users\Nimda\AppData\Roaming\POV-Ray\v3.6\bin\pvengine64.exe $(FileName)

To set up SciTe for context-sensitive POV-Ray help:

1. Select the "Options" menu. Select "Open pov.properties". A text file with POV-Ray-specific configuration settings will open in the editor window.
2. Scroll down to where it says:

   command.help.$(file.patterns.pov)=$(CurrentWord)!...

   change the file path to reflect the location of your POV-Ray installation. On my system it was:

   command.help.$(file.patterns.pov)=$(CurrentWord)!C:\Users\...username...\AppData\Roaming\POV-Ray\v3.6\help\povray36.chm

3. After a restart SciTE will now open the POV-Ray help file to the correct entry based on the word you have highlighted.

External links

• Comfortable editor for POV-Ray under Debian Linux?
• Useful tools for POV-Ray for Unix