Automatic highlighting with split screen

What happened to automatic variable highlighting? Just updated from 2020b and things used to look like this:

where I could just select the variable on the left side and then scroll way up to where the variable was declared/assigned on the right very easily w/o having to hunt or Ctrl+F it. Now, w/ 2022a, things look like this:

...no more highlighting on the right. When was that removed? Am I missing an extra option in the preferences somewhere?

I do love the alt+mouse vertical selection of 2022a (though I don't know why alt+shift+arrow box highlight navigation isn't present), but the variable highlighting on a split screen for very large scripts is a bit of a must have for me, so I might have to downgrade to the last version that still has it.

[Matthew Lang]

I checked all versions and it looks like from 2021b and on, the variable highlighting is limited to a single side when using split-screen. Any chance this could be updated to include both?

[Matthew Lang]

Just downloaded R2023b and the issue is still there. I made a very simple .m file & did a split screen and the two sides act like completely different .m files. Hightlighting works separately within each half, and more importantly the matching variable "where used" location navigation bar only works on the side you clicked. I use this ability in 2021a routinely and HEAVILY to help jump/navigate around very large scripts to go to, say, where a variable is declared and where it is used at multiple points in a script. If I want the declaration on the left split and to quickly go to the multiple uses of that variable on the right, I have to go and find it manually now since the navigation doesn't work across the split.

Any help? Can we bring back variable highlight across a split again? Does no one else use this very helpful feature? For now, looks like I'm going back to 2021a until this is resolved.

And while we're at it, could we have a 4-split? There's been quite a few times I'm tired of jumping locations and wished I had more than two views of different locations within a large script.

[Matthew Lang]

Does this have any visibility? Just checked the latest version and it's still broken. I'd love to know if this is even on anyone's radar. Is there a bug report I should be putting this in?

[Matthew Lang]

R2024b and it's still broken. Any visibility on this?

Answer 1

[Matthew Lang]

I checked each release and it looks like R2021a was the last release that supported cross-split variable highlighting. Any chance this could be added back in for a future release?

[Benjamin Tessler]

I'd also appreciate this being an option

[Voss]

I agree it's very useful to have the highlighting synchronized on both sides of a split, rather than independent highlighting on each side.

Answer 2

[Krishna]

Hi Matthew,

I tried to reproduce it at my end and the automatic variable highlighting was working fine for the version 2022a.

Check out the below blog to know more about Automatic Variable Highlighting.

Automatic Variable Highlighting » MATLAB Community - MATLAB & Simulink (mathworks.com)

[Matthew Lang]

Thanks Krishna,

To be clear, auto highlighting works fine within a single window, it's just in split screen (same script on left & right sides @ different vertical positions) that highlighting a variable on one side no longer highlights all the instances of that variable on the other side. Unfortunately, that blog is rather old and doesn't have anything about split screen. I have highlighting turned on and it works, just not w/ split screen like it did by default in 2020b.

[Matthew Lang]

Would you post a screenshot of your 2022a version highlighting a variable on both sides of a left/right splitscreen?