Linter (macOS / Nextpad++ port)

A Nextpad++ plugin for realtime code checking against any checkstyle-compatible linter — jshint, eslint, jscs, phpcs, csslint, etc. It runs the linter on the current document as you type, parses the checkstyle XML output, and marks problems in the editor.

macOS port of the Windows Notepad++ plugin notepadpp-linter by Vladimir Soshkin (MIT). The linting logic is ported faithfully; only the platform layer changes (see the header of src/Linter.mm):

Windows	macOS
CreateProcess + CreatePipe	NSTask + NSPipe (run via /bin/sh -lc)
MSXML6 COM (IXMLDOMDocument2)	NSXMLDocument + nodesForXPath:
_beginthreadex + GetExitCodeThread	dispatch_async worker → main-queue apply
CreateTimerQueueTimer (300 ms)	dispatch_after with a coalescing token
Win32 settings = the XML file	programmatic AppKit settings dialog + XML edit

Install

Copy Linter.dylib into ~/Library/Application Support/Nextpad++/plugins/Linter/ and restart Nextpad++. (cmake --build build --target install does this for you.)

Configure

The linters live in linter.xml inside the host plugins config dir (Plugins > Linter > Edit config (XML) opens it; a commented template is seeded on first run). Or use the dialog: Plugins > Linter > Settings….

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<NotepadPlus>
  <linter extension=".js"  command="eslint --format checkstyle" stdin="1" />
  <linter extension=".js"  command="jshint --reporter=checkstyle" />
  <linter extension=".php" command="phpcs --report=checkstyle" />
  <linter extension=".css" command="csslint --format=checkstyle-xml" />
</NotepadPlus>

• extension — matched against the current file's extension (with the dot).
• command — a checkstyle-emitting command. It runs through a login shell, so a bare name on your PATH (node/npm globals, Homebrew, etc.) resolves without an absolute path. The document is written to a temp file appended to the command unless stdin="1" is set.
• stdin="1" — feed the document on standard input instead of a temp file.
• Optional <style color="RRGGBB" alpha="0-255" /> changes the marker colour (an alpha switches the marker from a box to a translucent round box).

Notes / platform limitations

• Error tooltips. The Windows plugin wrote the per-position message into the editor's native status bar. On macOS that status bar is not a child window a plugin can poke, and NPPM_SETSTATUSBAR is a host no-op, so the message is shown instead as a Scintilla call tip at the caret when it sits on a flagged position. No host changes are made.
• Linters must be installed and on your shell PATH (or given an absolute path in the command).

License

MIT — see LICENSE.