Create and use simple to complex file/folder templates leveraging JavaScript template literals.
Animated GIF and description coming "soon."
Let’s walk through making a very simple single-file template.
- In the
{root}
folder of your VS Code workspace, create a folder named.templates
. - Create a subfolder named whatever you like. For example,
Documentation
. - Create a file named
.pig.js
in your subfolder. - Create a file named
Document.md
in your subfolder. - Paste this into
{root}/.templates/Documentation/.pig.js
:
// Metadata used when picking a template.
pig.name = 'Markdown document'
pig.description = '(.md)'
pig.detail = 'Add documentation to this project.'
// Executed when this user is selected by the user, or if the
// .templates folder only has a single template.
pig.executeAsync = async () => {
// Use VS Code API to prompt user about how they’d like to customize this template instance.
const title = await showInputBox({
title: 'What are you documenting?',
placeHolder: 'Title',
prompt: 'Should be singular'
})
if (!title) return // Returning a falsy value (undefined here) aborts template instantiation.
const sectionOptions = [ prepicked('Features'), prepicked('Settings'), prepicked('Known issues') ]
const selectedSections = await showQuickPick(baseClassOptions, { title: 'Which sections would you like?', canPickMany: true })
if (!selectedSections) return
const sections = toPickedKeys(selectedSections)
return { title, sections }
}
- Notice there are several variables globally available, but ignore that for now. More on that below.
- Paste this into
{root}/.templates/Documentation/Document.md
:
# ${title}
${sections.Features ? '## Features\n- ' : ''}
${sections.Settings ? '## Settings\n- ' : ''}
${sections.KnownIssues ? '## Known issues\n- ' : ''}
- Notice we’re using JavaScript template literals syntax to interpolate values from the
context
object returned frompig.executeAsync(…)
(they’re available globally). - Also note that of course this document will result in a bunch of whitespace if a
sectionOptions
option is unselected. That’s up to you to make your rendered template pretty.
- In VS Code, right-click a folder (or your workspace root) and select
Template Pig: Use template
.- If you only have one template, it’ll begin executing.
- If you have more than one template, you’ll be prompted to select one.
- The selected template will then call its
pig.executeAsync(…)
method, which may prompt you for additional information. - The
context
object returned frompig.executeAsync(…)
will then be passed topig.transformContext(…)
to add any additional context. - After that, each file in the template subfolder will be rendered with the
context
object returned frompig.transformContext(…)
. - After all template files have been rendered, they’ll be saved to disk.
- Well, there is one step before that. More on that below.
Implement this method to prompt the user for dynamic information. See the Global scope section below for ways you can prompt the user. This method should return an object that can be made available to your template items; all the top-level keys will be available globally in your template items. If you want to abort the template instantiation process, return a falsy value. paths
is an object with two keys:
paths.workspaceUri
is your project’s root folder.paths.targetUri
is where the template was instantiated (typically which folder was right-clicked).
While you’re developing your template, you’ll likely want to test it early and often. Once you get the prompt flow down, you’ll likely start working on your template items. However, testing them over and over can become tedious if you have to keep filling out your form. We’ve got you covered! After you successfully complete a form, we keep track of the context
object returned from pig.executeAsync(…)
. But, sometimes, you want to add more context to be available to your template items. That’s where pig.transformContext(…)
comes in. When you rerun the last template, that context
object will get passed to your (potentially new/updated) pig.transformContext(…)
method. Whatever you return will actually be the context
object available to your template items. For this reason, it is recommended that pig.executeAsync(…)
return the raw answers to your prompts and then pig.transformContext(…)
can add in whatever manipulations you may need — pascalCase()
ing something, kebabCase()
ing something else, whatever. Here’s an example:
pig.transformContext = ctx => ({
...ctx,
pcName: pascalCase(ctx.name),
kbName: kebabCase(ctx.name),
})
So far you’ve seen being able to right-click a folder and instantiate your template there. But, what if you want some files to wind up there, but others need to go in specific places in your project? That’s where pig.getDestinationPath(…)
comes in! Just add something like this in your .pig.js
file:
// Executed after all files were rendered to determine where to save them to.
// Called for each source path found in your template, following the rules mentioned for `getFolderContents(uri)` below.
pig.getDestinationPath = (entry, context, paths) => {
// `entry` is an object representing a file or folder.
// `entry.sourcePath` is a string that will be relative to this template subfolder (no leading forward slash).
// `entry.uri` is a `file`-schemed VS Code Uri object pointing to this item.
// `entry.dirent` is a Node.js fs.Dirent object related to this item. You can determine if it’s a file or folder by using `entry.dirent.isFile()` or `entry.dirent.isDirectory()`.
// `context` is the value your `pig.transformContext(…)` returned.
// `paths.workspaceUri` is your project’s root folder.
// `paths.targetUri` is where the template was instantiated (typically which folder was right-clicked).
// Keep in mind this `switch`’s `case`s are case-sensitive!
const { sourcePath } = entry
switch (sourcePath) {
// Here we’re creating a subfolder "docs" within the folder the user right-clicked.
// We’re also renaming the file to something more descriptive.
case 'Document.md': return `docs/${context.title}.md`
// Here the leading forward slash tells Template Pig to place the file relative
// to the workspace root. You’ll also notice we have Lodash available to our disposal!
case 'Test.js': return `/tests/${_.kebabCase(context.name)}.test.js`
// You can return any falsy value to omit a file from being written to disk.
// Typically you’d prompt the user in your `pig.executeAsync(…)` method, and then turn something
// off based on their response.
case 'MaybeIncluded.js': return context.shouldIncludeMaybeIncluded ? sourcePath : false
// Otherwise, just plop it relative to the target (where the user right-clicked).
default: return sourcePath
}
}
Undoubtedly some of the documents you create won’t be immediately necessary to manually edit/inspect after template instantiation. To declutter your workspace, you can implement pig.shouldOpenDocument(…)
. Simply return a truthy value to leave the document open, or a falsy value to close it. Here’s an example:
pig.shouldOpenDocument = (entry, context, paths) => {
// Arguments are identical to `getDestinationPath(…)` above.
const { sourcePath } = entry
switch (sourcePath) {
case 'OpenMe.txt': return true
default: return false
}
}
Please note: This experience isn’t ideal; unfortunately, VS Code’s API doesn’t make it easy to make all of your template’s changes in a
WorkspaceEdit
and control whether or not a tab will show up. I’ve tried two approaches, and both have their pros and cons.
- Create and apply a single
WorkspaceEdit
for the entire template. This resulted in a lot of documents being left open that should’ve been closed and forced me to put an arbitrarysetTimeout
to close documents. For bigger templates, that size would just have to keep increasing.- Create and apply a
WorkspaceEdit
for each file in the template. This has a lot more flickering of tabs opening and then closing, but the end state is more often what you want: open the documents that should be open, and close those that should not.I'm currently opting for option #2 for consistency. There are a handful of related GitHub issues to fix this behavior with VS Code’s API, but it doesn’t seem like it’ll be fixed anytime soon.
You can also put empty folders in your template. They follow the same rules as files when passed to pig.getDestinationPath(…)
:
- They can be placed relative to the target.
- They can be placed relative to the workspace root.
- They can be renamed! This also means you can make a template-root-level folder actually be nested several folders deep; you just need a placeholder to tell Template Pig to ask about it in
pig.getDestinationPath(…)
. - Do note that
git
and some other version control systems (VCS) will not version this folder.- To work around this, you can add an empty
.pignore
or.pigignore
file to the folder.
- To work around this, you can add an empty
These values are available globally within your .pig.js
file.
pig.name
,pig.detail
, andpig.description
are used to describe your template when the user is prompted about which template they’d like to instantiate.pig.name
is defaulted to the sentence-case version of your folder; you don’t have to set it!pig.detail
is put next topig.name
in a dimmer text. It may be cropped, but hovering it will reveal the entirety of the text.pig.description
is likepig.detail
in all ways except it’s put belowpig.name
.
log(value)
- Logs
value
to the VS Code "Template Pig" output channel.
- Logs
Several useful libraries and functions are injected and available globally, both in .pig.js
and your template items.
- Lodash, available as the traditional
_
. - change-case (both core and some of the more useful non-core functions), available globally:
camelCase()
capitalCase()
constantCase()
dotCase()
headerCase()
isLowerCase()
isUpperCase()
localeLowerCase()
localeUpperCaseFirst()
lowerCase()
lowerCaseFirst()
noCase()
(also aliased aslowerSentenceCase()
andspaceCase()
)paramCase()
(also aliased askebabCase()
)pascalCase()
pathCase()
sentenceCase()
snakeCase()
titleCase()
upperCase()
upperCaseFirst()
- Basically, no
swapCase()
orspongeCase()
.
- Basically, no
pluralize
, available without needing the prefixpluralize.
(i.e. these functions are global)addIrregularRule()
addPluralRule()
addSingularRule()
addUncountableRule()
isPlural()
isSingular()
plural()
singular()
- From VS Code API:
showQuickPick()
showInputBox()
QuickPickItemKind
- Official documentation is currently lacking, but there's two useful values:
Separator
andDefault
.
- Official documentation is currently lacking, but there's two useful values:
QuickInputButtons
- Template Pig specific:
option(label)
- Builds an option object with the given
label
, and akey
that’s thepascalCase
-ifiedlabel
. - The
key
is useful in combination withtoPickedKeys()
below.
- Builds an option object with the given
prepicked(label)
- Builds an option object like
option(label)
but also setspicked: true
.
- Builds an option object like
toPickedKeys(array)
- Converts
[{ key: 'Foo' }, { key: 'Bar' }, { key: 'Baz' }]
to{ Foo: true, Bar: true, Baz: true }
. - You likely will get an array similar to above when calling
showQuickPick(options, { canPickMany: true })
. - This is useful so your templates can simply
${selected.Foo ? 'Foo stuff' : ''}
instead ofselected.includes('Foo')
.
- Converts
getFileContent(uri)
- Returns the file’s content as a string, read with UTF-8 encoding.
- Returns
null
if there’s an error reading the file.
getFolderContents(uri, options = {…})
- Returns an
async
generator - Yields files and folders underneath the
uri
. - Skips files named
.pig.js
,.pignore
, and.pigignore
. options.yieldNonEmptyFolders
: defaults tofalse
.- By default, only yields folders when they don’t yield child items. That is, it’ll only yield a folder that’s either empty or only contains some combination of the aforementioned specific files. Or has symbolic links or other weird stuff (that’d be skipped).
options.maxDepth
: defaults toInfinity
. Specifies how many folders deep would you like to go.
- Returns an
getRelativePath(ancestorUri, descendantUri)
- Given
file:
schemeUri
s pointing toC:\Foo\Bar
andC:\Foo\Bar\Baz\Qux.txt
, returns the string'Baz/Qux.txt'
- Does not handle cases when
descendantUri
is actually a sibling or ancestor's descendant.
- Given
toFileUri(path)
- Returns path normalized then wrapped in a VS Code
Uri
object with thefile:
scheme.
- Returns path normalized then wrapped in a VS Code
Everything in a template item is evaluated as a JavaScript template literal. However, sometimes it can be useful to set up file-specific variables or helper functions. For example, if you have a highly dynamic template that conditionally adds several contiguous sections and the whitespace between them is important, that can result in a lot of ${…}${…}${…}${…}
on a single line. Reading one really long line of code isn’t fun.
Enter the <pig>
tag! If you place one of these at the beginning of your template item, you can add additional JavaScript between it and its corresponding </pig>
. A single immediate newline following the </pig>
will be stripped (if existent). Everything after that is your template item content.
Here’s a simple example template item leveraging this feature:
<pig>
// Assume `methodNames` came from `pig.executeAsync(…)`'s return context.
const allMethods = methodNames.map(m => `function ${m}() {\n \n}`).join('\n\n')
</pig>
public class ${name} {
${allMethods}
}
This extension acknowledges the following settings:
templatePig.templatesPath
- The path for workspace-specific templates.
- Defaults to
".templates"
, which is effectively"{root}/.templates"
.
templatePig.globalTemplatesPath
- The path for globally useful templates.
- Defaults to
null
.
- All rendered template files are opened after 1 second.
- Files are always overwritten without prompt.