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How to make PhpStorm automatically highlight selection

I cannot find a way to make PhpStorm highlight the appearances of a selected word/string in a file automatically at the time of the selection.

Example - say I have this code (the logic doesn't matter):

$app = new App(); //this is an app var of type "App" that contains our Application
$application_ranks = $app_array['app_rankings'];    //some operation

Now, I make a selection - say I select the first "app" part.

PhpStorm behavior with BrowseWordAtCaret plugin installed (no highlighting whatsoever):

enter image description here

Sublime Text 2 behavior (incomplete):

enter image description here

Notepad++ behavior (close, but still not perfect):

enter image description here

PhpDesigner 8 behavior (works as expected):

enter image description here

To save your time, I am aware of the "Highlight Usages" feature which pretty much does the same thing - the problem though is that this works only for variables/classes/function names/function calls etc, while what I am after is for this to work for ANY selected sequence of characters, regardless if it is a variable or a comment or a function or whatever. Like if you pressed Ctrl+F (Find).

I did try the BrowseWordAtCaret plugin for PhpStorm suggested in this post but it still doesn't provide this functionality.

Is it possible to somehow achieve this? I am quite bewildered that something so simple (and basic - maybe even fundamental for coding in my opinion) is so hard to achieve on an editor this full of capabilities and so much devoted to provide a great user experience etc.

Thanks for your time!

Solution

  • Not the perfect solution, yet close enough:

    Top Menu -> View -> Highlight Word at Caret

    or alternatively:

    Settings -> Editor -> General -> Appearance - Highlight Word at Caret

    Note that this is a BrowseWordAtCaret plugin option, so it requires the installation of the plugin. To install it, go to Settings -> Plugins -> Browse Repositories -> BrowseWordAtCaret -> Install.

    This will still not highlight the word if it's part of another string, but it will highlight it in all other occasions. Example:

    PhpStorm:

    enter image description here

    PhpDesigner:

    enter image description here