Developers lack reliable control over code appearance in editors
Developers want code to be easier to read and format in their preferred way, especially when using symbolic syntax or editing files that mix languages. Existing editor extensions can be unreliable, and requests for selection-only formatting and visible whitespace point to gaps in fine-grained editor controls. The signals support an editor-extension opportunity, but do not establish how large the market is.
For developers customizing code editors and editing mixed-language files. Mentioned from Jan 2022 to Aug 2025 on GitHub and Hacker News.
6 different people described this problem in 5 separate discussions.
- Indie fit
- 3.0/10
- Pain
- 5.1/10
- Frequency
- 7.0/10
- Willingness to pay
- 0.0/10
- Momentum
- 5.0/10
- Who pays
- Professionals
- Competition
- Medium
- Build difficulty
- Medium
What people said
Quoted word for word. Follow a link to read the whole discussion.
The extension Prettify Symbols Mode which does not work correctly, but people use it anyway has 16k downloads and a 4 star rating
In my current case, I work with Shopify themes which can have several different formats in the same file: CSS, JavaScript, JSON, HTML, Liquid, etc. So it will be useful to highlight parts of the file, issue a "Format Selection As" command and choose a certain language to format that selection alone
Build brief
See what to build and who will buy it
- 2 product ideas with the smallest useful version and pricing
- 4 places to find your first customers
- 5 more quotes from people who have this problem
- Current workarounds, existing solutions and risks