Many modern applications provide users with the ability to view and edit source code, scripts, and mark-up languages as varied as C++, C#, Java, VBA, VBScript or JScript, XML, HTML/RTF, and proprietary languages.

Most integrated development environments (IDEs), like Visual Studio, use a color textual key to distinguish among source code elements. For example, many IDEs assign a color to a specific type of element, such as a comment, a keyword, or a preprocessor symbol. Color-coding enables the user to identify the various elements of the source code quickly and correctly.

Objective Edit provides a complete source code syntax highlighting class library that you can integrate into applications in a matter of hours.

Objective Edit is written in and is completely compatible with the Microsoft® Foundation Class (MFC) Library.

The following figure shows a simple Objective Edit MDI application with markers illustrating the syntax highlighting and gutter symbol features of a C++ source code file.