Preferences Code Hints for Developers

Defining Preferences for Code Hints

All the preferences defined are available as code hints in brackets.json and .brackets.json unless they are excluded.

Documentation for definePreference

definePreference was modified to support code hints.

definePreference(id, type, initial, options)

• id unprefixed identifier of the preference. Generally a dotted name.
• type Data type for the preference (generally, string, boolean, number)
• initial Default value for the preference
• options Additional options for a preference

Name	Description
options.name	Name of the preference that can be used in the UI.
options.description	A description of the preference.
options.validator	A function to validate the value of a preference.
options.excludeFromHints	true if you want to exclude a preference from code hints.
options.keys	An object that will hold the child preferences in case the preference type is object
options.values	An array of possible values of a preference. It will show up in code hints.
options.valueType	In case the preference type is array, valueType should hold data type of its elements.

Starting off...

var PreferencesManager = brackets.getModule("preferences/PreferencesManager"),
    prefs              = PreferencesManager.getExtensionPrefs("ext");

Defining a Boolean Preference

Note: Since Boolean can either be true or false, you don't need to pass a values array when defining preferences.

prefs.definePreference("foo", "boolean", true, {
    description: "This is a boolean preference"
});

Defining a Number Preference

prefs.definePreference("foo", "number", 4, {
    description: "This is a number preference",
    values: [128, 256, 512, 1024]
});

Defining a String Preference

prefs.definePreference("foo", "string", "bar", {
    description: "This is a string preference",
    values: ["foo", "bar", "baz"]
});

Defining an Array Preference

Note: When the preference type is "array", you also need to pass the valueType to show the data type of values an array can hold.

prefs.definePreference("foo", "array", ["foo"], {
    description: "This is an array of string",
    valueType: "string",
    values: ["foo", "bar", "baz"]
});

Defining an Object Preference

Note: When preference type is "object", you can pass its child keys as keys object.

prefs.definePreference("foo", "object", {}, {
    description: "This is an object",
    keys: {
        foo: {
            type: "boolean",
            description: "This is a nested boolean preference"
        },
        bar: {
            type: "number",
            description: "This is a nested number preference",
            values: [128, 256, 512, 1024]
        },
        baz: {
            type: "string",
            description: "This is a nested string preference",
            values: ["foo", "bar", "baz"]
        },
        foobar: {
            type: "array",
            description: "This is a nested array preference",
            values: [128, 256, 512, 1024],
            valueType: "number"
        },
        foobaz: {
            type: "array",
            description: "This is also a nested array preference",
            values: ["foo", "bar", "baz"],
            valueType: "string"
        }
    }
});

Exclusion of Preferences

In case you don't want to allow any preference to show up in code hints, you can exclude it as well. If an object preference is excluded then all of its child keys will also be excluded from code hints.

prefs.definePreference("foo", "boolean", true, {
    excludeFromHints: true // This preference won't show up in code hints.
});