File Template

A Visual Studio Code extension for creating files from templates automatically.

How to use

1. Open a new file in VS Code.
2. Press Ctrl + Shift + P (or Cmd + Shift + P on macOS) to open the Command Palette.
3. Type File Template: Insert Template and press Enter.

Default Types

• JavaScript/TypeScript and JSX/TSX
• HTML
• CSS
• PHP
• Python
• Ruby
• XML
• Vue

Your own templates

The templates you customize live in a personal folder, separate from the ones the extension ships. That folder holds only what you change: for every language you have not touched, the built-in template is used, so improvements to the built-in ones reach you when the extension updates.

1. Edit a template Run File Template: Edit or Add a Template from the Command Palette and pick a language. A copy of the built-in template opens for editing; change it and your copy is the one that gets inserted from then on. Leave it exactly as it is and it is dropped again, so you keep getting improvements to the built-in one. Delete the file at any time to go back to the built-in template.

2. Add a language The same command lets you pick Other language... and type any VS Code language identifier — cpp, go, shellscript, and so on. Open a file of that language and run File Template: Insert Template.

3. Open the folder File Template: Open Templates Folder reveals it in your file manager. You can add or remove <languageId>.tmpl files there directly. The folder lives outside the extension's install directory, so nothing in it is lost when the extension updates.

Templates use TextMate snippet syntax, plus ${date}, which is replaced with the current date and time.

Upgrading from 3.0.x? Those versions filled your folder with a copy of every built-in template, which meant later improvements to them never reached you. On the first run of this version, copies you never edited are removed (the identical built-in template is used instead); every template you customized is kept.

Upgrading from 2.0.x? Those versions had you edit templates inside ~/.vscode/extensions/ralfzhang.filetemplate-<version>/. The first run after upgrading copies your customized templates out of there automatically, on a best-effort basis — VS Code may already have deleted the old version's folder. If it does not find them and that folder still exists, copy your .tmpl files into the folder opened by File Template: Open Templates Folder.

Links

• GitHub
• VS Code Marketplace

License

MIT