topic Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting? in SAS Studio

Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

Nietzsche — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 22:09:10 GMT

Is there a way to copy codes from SAS Studio without losing formatting? I am able to do that in other IDE such as Pycharm.

This is important for me because I make Anki flash cards and I prefer to have the formatting (especially font colour) so I can see the keywords in the syntax.

Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

SASKiwi — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 22:51:43 GMT

AFAIK, the colour coding in the SAS editor uses proprietary functionality provided by SAS. Having said that a SAS IDE using VS Code is now available and that may be a path to retaining the colour formatting. Unfortunately only SAS Viya is currently supported but that might change in the future.

BTW screenshots are a common way of retaining an exact look of the original application as you have demonstrated in your post.

Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

Nietzsche — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 23:22:55 GMT

yes I know screenshot will work but I need to the code to exist in Anki so I can easy copy the code back into sas studio if I need it.

plus screenshot will make my anki collection file size unnecessarily large.

Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

Tom — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 23:31:23 GMT

Why do you need the color? Remember the coloring is just SAS Studio's GUESS as to what the code is. SAS itself might interpret the code differently than the coloring that the SAS Studio editor attached. Especially if the code is using an macro logic.

Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

Nietzsche — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 23:33:43 GMT

just makes it easier to read.

If you're reviewing 100+ cards a day in anki, trust me, the colour in the codes help a lot then a lines of black text

Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

Tom — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 23:51:04 GMT

I think the color formatting in the "Enhanced" Editor in Display Manager running on Windows does copy. At least when pasted into WORD.

Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

SASKiwi — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 23:56:33 GMT

When I copy SAS code from EG's SAS editor to MS Word or Outlook colour coding is retained. I'm thinking this is RTF formatting. Try copying to MS Word and then to Anki. Not sure if SAS Studio works the same.

Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

Nietzsche — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 02:49:04 GMT

To use EG, I need to be on work computer since it is prohibitively expensive for almost everyone to use at home. My only option right now is SAS Studio.

Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

Tom — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 04:19:17 GMT

You can just install Visual Studio Code (open source editor) and install one of the SAS extensions.

Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

Nietzsche — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 04:38:29 GMT

nice.

Which extension did you install? There are a few versions.

Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

Nietzsche — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 06:20:25 GMT

Just installed one of the extension, I still need the SAS engine to use SAS tho.

Don't you need the underlying SAS Engine installed to use VS Code?

If I haven't made it clear before, I don't have SAS or SAS viya installed on my computer because it is very expensive for an individual like me to use at home. Which is why I am using SAS studio for free on SAS OnDemand.

Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

SASKiwi — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 07:02:07 GMT

To run the code, yes. No if you are just editing. If you want to run it, just copy it over to SAS Studio.

Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

Nietzsche — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 07:48:47 GMT

To run the code, yes. No if you are just editing. If you want to run it, just copy it over to SAS Studio.

Are you able to use SAS theme in VS Code without SAS engine? Have you actually tried it or you're just guessing?

Because after I installed the extension for SAS in VS Code, the first thing I need to do is to change to SAS engine before you can select theme as instructed.

I have tried the other extension, but this extension SAS-Syntax has the most downloads and rating.

Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

Tom — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 15:56:24 GMT

Yes. It is using the highlighting and I cannot use the execution engine since it only supports Viya (why???)

Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

Nietzsche — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 21:26:11 GMT

@Tom

I have tried the official extension by SAS institute, one by Venkata Paruchuri and the one by 77qingliu.

None of them worked.

I think I def need the underlying SAS engine installed and working before syntax highlighting will work in vs code.

If you got syntax highlight working without SAS engine in VS code, can you tell me which exact extension you used?

Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

Tom — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 21:45:21 GMT

Here is the version I installed.

SASv0.1.1 SAS Institute Inc.

Official SAS Language Extension for VS Code

You must have either disabled it somehow. I don't even know how to change the settings for syntax highlighting. It just seems to do something automatically based on the type of file I have open.

Perhaps you never told it the file you were editing was a SAS file.

It will default to the SAS if you name the file with .sas extension.

Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

Quentin — Sun, 04 Dec 2022 18:27:11 GMT

@Tom wrote:

Yes. It is using the highlighting and I cannot use the execution engine since it only supports Viya (why???)

As to why Visual Studio Code only connects to Viya now, I heard that there is a vision to get it to connect to SAS 9 environment. Viya has API's that make the connection easier to implement, so they started there. For SAS 9, they need to decide whether to use SAS Integration Technologies (I think this is what EG uses) or something else. So Visual Studio Code connecting to SAS 9 is apparently on the roadmap, but not clear how far off. And I'd guess there is possibly a bit of politics as well, I assume from SAS strategy point of view, they might be happy to have as many carrots as possible attached to Viya. Like PROC PYTHON.

Re: Is there a way to copy from SAS Studio without losing formatting?

SASKiwi — Sun, 04 Dec 2022 21:57:08 GMT

@Nietzsche - I just tried copying code from SAS Studio 3.81 to Word and that doesn't retain formatting, however Enterprise Guide definitely does. It is possible a later version of Studio fixes that but I don't have any access to those currently.