Special Characters Viewer

Reveal invisible characters in your code - spot newlines, tabs, spaces, and hidden Unicode characters instantly!

✨ Features

• 🔍 Toggle Visibility - Show/hide special characters with one click or keyboard shortcut
• 📝 Escape Sequence Notation - Displays characters using standard notation (\n, \t, \r, etc.)
• 🎯 9 Special Characters Supported - Including newlines, tabs, spaces, and zero-width Unicode characters
• 🚀 Real-time Updates - See characters appear as you type
• 💡 Hover Tooltips - Get detailed descriptions of each character
• 📊 Status Bar Integration - Quick access via status bar indicator
• ⌨️ Keyboard Shortcut - Ctrl+Shift+Alt+S (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Shift+Alt+S (Mac)

🎬 Demo

Tip: Perfect for debugging line ending issues, finding hidden Unicode characters, or understanding file formatting!

📋 Supported Characters

Character	Display	Code	Description
Line Feed	\n	U+000A	Standard Unix/Linux line ending
Carriage Return	\r	U+000D	Classic Mac line ending component
Tab	\t	U+0009	Horizontal tab character
Space	␣	U+0020	Regular space
Delete	\x7F	U+007F	Delete control character
Non-breaking Space	\u00A0	U+00A0	Space that prevents line breaks
Zero Width Space	\u200B	U+200B	Invisible space for word breaking
Zero Width Non-Joiner	\u200C	U+200C	Prevents character joining
Zero Width Joiner	\u200D	U+200D	Forces character joining
Byte Order Mark (BOM)	\uFEFF	U+FEFF	Zero-width no-break space

🚀 Getting Started

Installation

1. Open VS Code
2. Press Ctrl+P (or Cmd+P on Mac)
3. Type ext install joshivilas.special-characters-viewer
4. Press Enter

Or search for "Special Characters Viewer" in the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X).

Usage

Method 1: Command Palette

1. Press Ctrl+Shift+P (or Cmd+Shift+P on Mac)
2. Type "Toggle Special Characters"
3. Press Enter

Method 2: Keyboard Shortcut

• Windows/Linux: Ctrl+Shift+Alt+S
• Mac: Cmd+Shift+Alt+S

Method 3: Status Bar

• Click the 👁️ icon in the bottom-right status bar

When enabled, the status bar icon will highlight, and special characters will be displayed inline in your document.

🎯 Use Cases

• Line Ending Issues: Quickly spot mixed \r\n (Windows) vs \n (Unix) line endings
• Tab vs Spaces: Identify inconsistent indentation in your code
• Unicode Debugging: Find invisible zero-width characters that break rendering
• File Format Analysis: Understand text encoding and formatting
• Code Review: Catch whitespace issues before commit
• Data Cleaning: Identify problematic characters in text files

⚙️ Requirements

• Visual Studio Code version 1.85.0 or higher

🔧 Extension Settings

This extension currently works out of the box with no configuration needed.

Future Settings (Planned):

• Customize display symbols
• Choose which characters to show/hide
• Color customization
• Font size adjustment

📝 Release Notes

0.0.1 (Initial Release)

• ✅ Toggle special characters visibility
• ✅ Support for 9 common invisible characters
• ✅ Escape sequence notation display
• ✅ Status bar integration
• ✅ Keyboard shortcut support
• ✅ Real-time document updates
• ✅ Hover tooltips with descriptions

🐛 Known Issues

• Performance may be impacted on very large files (10,000+ lines)
• Some fonts may not render zero-width character indicators clearly

🤝 Contributing

Found a bug or have a feature request? Contributions are welcome!

• Issues: Report a bug or request a feature
• Pull Requests: Contribute code

📄 License

MIT License - See LICENSE file for details

🙏 Acknowledgments

Built with ❤️ using the VS Code Extension API

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Happy debugging! 🎉 If you find this extension helpful, please consider leaving a ⭐ rating on the marketplace!

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