Question

Gherkin syntax files are just plain text so any editor such as notepad can be used. However, one of the more important things we are using this for is to provide tables of sample data. Without good formatting options the files become hard to read.

There are some good tools (see: How to get Gherkin syntax highlighting for .feature files in Visual Studio?) for visual studio such as specflow.org or https://github.com/henritersteeg/cuke4vs. Another option for developers using eclipse is discussed at Cucumber IDE for feature writing with autocomplete? However I don’t want to require it be installed for our business analysts.

Here is a syntax highlighter files (http://productive.me/develop/cucumbergherkin-syntax-highlighting-for-notepad/) that can be imported into notepad++ but it does nothing for table formatting.

Are there any other options that I might have missed for allowing non-developers to efficiently edit .feature gherkin files?

Answer 1

There seems to be a couple of projects in the works.

• There’s a beta of a Gherkin editor here: http://gherkineditor.codeplex.com/ (windows)
• Cucumber’s author has created a web-based gherkin editor (relies on javascript, Ace and Node.js). Perhaps a bit more complicated to set up, but it could be integrated into a CMS or other web-based system.

Neither really substitutes for a conversation with your business domain experts.