VSCode setup tips

[Asher Smith]

I'm hoping to solicit some advice from the community on how best to set up VSCode for use in SE. Which text editor one prefers is a perpetual conversation here, and I don't want to wade into it here; suffice to say that I'm happy with VSCode and want to stick with it for now, but feel that I could probably be making my life easier if I had it set up with more customisations.

I'm particularly interested in how people are setting up keybindings or command palette shortcuts to get the SE toolkit to run better; I know that it should be possible to highlight some text and pipe it through se titlecase, and I'm sure that I could figure it out, but I'm also sure that it's a solved problem and someone else here can prevent me from having to reinvent the wheel.

For what it's worth on my end, I have a lot of snippets set up in the html.json snippets file; for example, this one wraps a phrase in italics for language and then puts the cursor in the right place to type the language code:

"Wrap in xml:lang italics": {

"scope": "html",

"prefix": "xml:lang"

"body": [

"<i xml:lang=\"$1\">$TM_SELECTED_TEXT</i>"

],

"description": "Wrap selected text in an italics tag with xml:lang semantics"

}

[David]

I use VSCodium (the "libre" version of VS Code) which, for the purposes of this exercise, is equivalent.

I've put (most) of my user keybindings in a gist - you can cherry pick! I have one that will complement your lang/xml example. It's the second last one (I've got it on "ctrl+alt+x"). It works on the assumption that you have something like: `<i>das ist aber nicht möglich</i>`: position the cursor after `<i`, hit `ctrl+alt+x`, and it will instert ` xml:lang="xx"` with a drop-down menu to pick the language. (You can set the sort order in the snippet; the options can of course be extended.) Works very fast! :)

You'll see I tend to use `ctrl+alt+_` but you'll have your own preference there. 

I have the `se titlecase` included there. It runs on selected text with `ctrl+alt+/`. This one needs an extension: "Filter Text".

And I have a LOT of semantics strings on shortcut keys too (not all in that gist); the examples in the gist provide the pattern which can be added to.

There are a couple that run "internal" commands: e.g., the `emmet` strip-tags. One runs a user snippet (`dquo.wrap`, mapped to `ctrl+alt+q`) depends on a "user snippet", and I've put that snippet in a comment.

Finally, one setting I find invaluable: open settings (ctrl+,) then "Search settings" for `invisible`. That will find `Editor > Unicode Highlight: Invisible Characters", which I have "✓" on. SO helpful for SE productions!

Hope that's a bit of help, anyway. I'm sure there are others I'd be glad to know about, too. 

David / Fife, UK

[Asher Smith]

On the subject of extensions, HTMLHint highlights where I have mismatched tags and other syntax errors well.

[David Reimer]

And I've already purloined your "language wrapper" snippet. As I get
going on Romola, I see there are many, *many*, Italian phrases without
italics (or semantics, of course), so that will be invaluable.