# orion.edit.outliner

An `orion.edit.outliner` service provides an overview of a file being edited. The overview is given as a tree, which the Orion UI renders in the left-hand pane alongside the file you are editing. Items in the tree can be links that take you to the appropriate position in the file, or to another URL entirely.

## Service methods (Orion 4.0)

A provider implements the `computeOutline` method, whose signature is as follows:

computeOutline(editorContext, options)
  editorContext `ObjectReference` The Editor Context object.
  options `Object`
    options.contentType `String` The Content Type ID of the file being edited.

The return value (or fulfillment value) is an Array of top-level OutlineElement objects, which will be displayed in the outline pane.

## Service methods (Orion 3.0)

A provider implements the `getOutline` method, whose signature is as follows:

getOutline(contents, title)
  contents `String` The contents of the file being edited.
  title `String` The path and filename of the file being edited.

Returns an Array of top-level OutlineElement objects, which will be displayed in the outline pane.

## The OutlineElement object

Each OutlineElement has these properties:

  label `String` Text to be shown in the UI for this element.
  className `String` Optional A space-separated list of CSS class names to be applied to this element in the UI.
  children `Array` Optional Array of child OutlineElements of this element. Children may be nested to an arbitrary depth.
  line `Number` Optional The line number within the file to use as the link for this element in the UI. Line numbers begin counting from 1.
    The optional properties column, start, end, text may be provided for finer-grained control. (Consult the `orion.util.hashFromPosition()` documentation in the Client API reference for details about these parameters.)
  href `String` Optional When line is omitted, the href property provides a URL to use as the link.

## Service attributes

Implementations of `orion.edit.outliner` must define the following attributes:

contentType
  `Array` An array of Content Type IDs giving the types of files that this outliner can provide an outline for.
id
  `String` A unique identifier for this outline provider.
name
  `String` A user-readable name for this outline provider.

## Examples

This example shows an outline provider that runs on .txt files. It finds Mediawiki-style `=Section Headings=` and generates a flat outline from them. (A more elaborate implementation might also find subsections and include them as children of the top-level sections.)

     var provider = new eclipse.PluginProvider();
     provider.registerServiceProvider("orion.edit.outliner", {
       getOutline: function(contents, title) {
         var outline = [];
         var lines = contents.split(/\r?\n/);
         for (var i=0; i < lines.length; i++) {
           var line = lines[i];
           var match = /^=\s*(.+?)\s*=$/.exec(line);
           if (match) {
             outline.push({
                label: match[1],
                line: i+1  // lines are numbered from 1
             });
           }
         }
         return outline;
       }
     }, {
       contentType: ["text/plain"],
       name: "Headings",
       id: "orion.outliner.example.headings"
     });
     provider.connect();