Snippets & templates

Editora has two related ways to stop retyping boilerplate: snippets for inline expansions, and file templates for whole new files. The two have different syntaxes: a snippet body uses the VS Code / TextMate tab-stop syntax, and a template body is a file with named ${variable} placeholders.

Snippets

Type a trigger and press Tab, or pick from the Snippet: Insert… list (C-c i). Once expanded:

• Placeholders are pre-selected so you can overtype them.
• Tab / Shift-Tab cycle the fields, and mirrors update live.
• A choice field shows a dropdown.
• $0 is where the caret lands when you finish.
• Every field is outlined, mirrors are underlined, and the final caret position is marked. The status bar shows where you are, as in Snippet 2/3.
• Esc, a click on that status-bar segment, or Snippet: Leave Tab Stops (snippets.endSession) leaves the fields and keeps the text. Moving the caret out of the fields does the same, so Tab indents again.

Bodies use the standard syntax: $1, ${1:default}, mirrors (a repeated number), ${1|a,b|} choices, and variables. Snippets ship for 30 languages, plus a global set that applies to every file. The TypeScript set also applies to JSX and TSX files.

Expanding with Tab

A trigger can be a word (fori), a token with punctuation (#include), or up to three words (else if). Tab does not expand a trigger inside a comment or a string, or in a CSV/TSV file; there it indents as usual.

A trigger typed out in full goes ahead of other completions. In Markdown and plain text, no dictionary or AI inline suggestion is shown over it, so Tab expands the snippet. With a language server, the trigger’s snippet is the first and highlighted row of the completion list, so Tab or Enter takes it.

The bundled date and time snippets are ordinary words, so Tab alone leaves them be. They are offered in the completion popup and the Snippet: Insert… list, and in Markdown and plain text as an inline suggestion at the end of a line (date → Current date (YYYY-MM-DD)), which Tab accepts.

Settings → Snippets → Expand snippets with Tab (on by default, also View: Toggle Snippet Expansion on Tab, view.toggleSnippetTabExpansion) turns Tab expansion off altogether. Snippets then come from the completion popup and Snippet: Insert… only.

Snippet variables

A variable is written $NAME or ${NAME}, and ${NAME:default} supplies a value for when it is empty. A $name Editora does not know stays in the text as typed.

Your own snippets

User snippets live in your config folder under snippets/<language>.json (or global.json). Snippets are merged by name in the order bundled, plugin, user, so your snippet replaces a bundled or plugin one with the same name. When two snippets share a trigger, both stay in the completion popup and the picker, and Tab expands yours before a plugin’s or a bundled one. Three commands manage them:

• Snippet: Manage… opens Settings → Snippets, where you add, edit, and remove them without touching the JSON. The list has a filter and a trigger column.
• Snippet: Edit User Snippets… opens the file for the current language. It reloads when you save.
• Snippet: Reload Snippets picks up changes without a restart.

The format is the VS Code snippet JSON, and the reader is lenient about real-world files. A snippet can have several triggers: an array prefix in the JSON, or a comma-separated list in the Triggers field in Settings. A scope field (a comma-separated list of language ids) limits a snippet to those languages. A file with a mistake is reported with its name, the reason and the line, and only the bad entry is skipped.

Changing or disabling a bundled snippet

Bundled snippets appear in Settings → Snippets alongside yours. Editing one saves your own version under the same name, which replaces the bundled snippet under all its triggers; Remove brings the bundled one back. Disable switches a snippet off without deleting anything, and Enable restores it. In the JSON, a disabled bundled snippet is an entry with that snippet’s name and "disabled": true.

File templates

New File From Template (C-c C-n, also a toolbar button) scaffolds a file, or a whole set of files, from a reusable template. A picker chooses the template and shows where each one comes from (bundled, yours, or a plugin), then a small wizard prompts for any variables it declares that Editora can’t fill in itself.

Bundled templates cover a Java class, a Java compact source file, an HTML page, an HTML bundle (multiple files), a Markdown doc, a Python script, a Python project (multiple files), a shell script, and a Zsh script.

Template syntax

A template body is a file, not a snippet. Exactly three forms are special, in a body, a file name, or a path:

Everything else is written as it is: $1, $HOME, $@, ${arr[0]}, $(date) and backslashes are literal, so shell and awk content needs no escaping. To write a literal ${name}, double the dollar: $${name}.

These variables are filled in for you rather than asked for: ${author}, ${projectName}, ${packageName}, ${packageDeclaration}, ${fileName}, ${baseName}, ${extension}, ${date}, ${year}, and ${time}. ${packageDeclaration} is a whole package x.y; line followed by a blank line, or nothing when the file is outside a package. The snippet variables that start with TM_ or CURRENT_ work in templates too.

The wizard

The wizard asks for every variable that is not built in, plus the built-ins it cannot work out. That includes the template’s main name (the class name, the file’s base name, or the package) when the file name depends on it, and the project name when no project is open. Fields have readable labels: a template can supply its own, and otherwise a name like issueTitle is shown as Issue title.

The wizard has a Folder field (with a Browse button). For a single-file template it is optional: leave it blank to create an unsaved buffer, or pick a folder to write the file to disk. A multi-file template requires a folder. Invoking New → From Template… from a project folder’s right-click menu pre-fills that folder. The two flows are also the template.new and template.newInFolder commands.

Before anything is written, the wizard lists the files that already exist in the folder. They are kept as they are; pressing Create again creates only the missing ones. A template never overwrites a file. When it is done, the file that holds ${cursor} opens with the caret there.

Created files end with a line break and follow the project’s .editorconfig line endings. A file that starts with #!, such as the shell and Zsh scripts, is created executable on Linux and macOS.

Java packages

A Java template created in a folder gets the package of that folder. Editora looks for a src/main/java or src/test/java folder above the file, or a plain src directly under the project root, and reads the package from the path below it. The search stops at the project root, and folders such as src/main/resources are not source roots. The Java Class template writes the matching package line, or none outside a package.

Your own templates

Drop template JSON files in your config folder under templates/. The file name without .json is the template’s id, and templates override each other by id in the order bundled, plugin, user. The author name used by ${author} comes from Settings → Templates → Author (it defaults to your OS user).

• Template: Manage… opens Settings → Templates to add, edit, or remove single-file templates, including the ones plugins provide. Editing a bundled or plugin template saves a copy in your templates/ folder that overrides it; Remove asks first, deletes your copy, and the original comes back.
• Template: Edit User Templates… (template.editUser) opens a list: pick one of your templates to open as JSON, choose New template… for a starter file, or choose Customize on a bundled or plugin template to copy it to your folder. Multi-file templates are edited this way.
• Template: Reload Templates re-reads the folder. Saving a template file in Editora applies it at once.

A single-file template looks like this:

{
  "name": "Java Class",
  "description": "A public Java class with a main method",
  "language": "java",
  "fileName": "${className:Main}.java",
  "labels": { "className": "Class name" },
  "body": ["${packageDeclaration}public class ${className:Main} {", "    ${cursor}", "}"]
}

• name is required. body is a string or an array of lines.
• fileName is the name of the created file and may contain variables.
• language sets the grammar of the created file when its name alone does not select one.
• labels maps a variable to the label its wizard field shows.
• A multi-file template has "files": [{ "path": "...", "body": "..." }] instead of fileName and body. Paths are relative to the chosen folder, may contain variables, and cannot lead outside that folder.

A file that is not this shape is skipped. The picker and Template: Reload Templates name the file, the reason, and the line of a JSON syntax error.

Starting a project

New Project From Template (project.newFromTemplate) uses a multi-file template to start a project. Pick the template, then enter a Project name and a Location; the wizard shows the folder it creates. Editora creates <location>/<name>, writes the template’s files there, and opens the folder as a project in its own window on the template’s main file. The location defaults to the folder beside the active project, or your home folder. A folder that already exists and is not empty is refused. The name you enter is ${projectName} and, in a form valid for a package (my-app becomes my_app), the default for ${packageName}.

New files by type

File: New File of Type… (file.newFileOfType, also New in the Project tree’s right-click menu) creates an empty or minimal file of a chosen kind (a Java class, interface, record or enum, a Markdown file, a Python script, YAML, and so on) in the current folder. It asks only for a name.

• The type’s extension is added unless the name already ends in a known one, so release-1.2 as a Markdown file becomes release-1.2.md.
• A Java type gets the package line of its folder, as described under Java packages.
• A name that cannot work is refused with the reason: a name Windows reserves (CON, NUL, COM1), one of the characters < > : " | ? *, a trailing dot or space, or a name that starts with ~. For Java types, a keyword or a name with another extension (Foo.txt) is refused as well.

Autocomplete overlap

Snippet prefixes also surface in autocomplete: accepting a snippet from the completion popup starts a full tab-stop session rather than inserting plain text.