Introduction to VS Code Formatting

Visual Studio Code has become the editor of choice for millions of developers worldwide, and one of its most powerful features is its extensive support for code formatting. In this comprehensive video series, we'll show you how to set up and configure various code formatters in VS Code with just one click, saving you time and ensuring your code always looks professional and consistent.

Whether you're a solo developer looking to improve your workflow or part of a team trying to maintain coding standards, our video tutorials will guide you through the entire process from installation to advanced configuration.

Why Code Formatting Matters

Consistent code formatting is more than just aesthetics—it's a crucial aspect of professional software development that offers numerous benefits:

• Improved readability: Well-formatted code is easier to read and understand
• Reduced cognitive load: Consistent styling lets you focus on logic, not layout
• Better collaboration: Team members can understand each other's code more quickly
• Fewer merge conflicts: Consistent formatting reduces unnecessary diff changes
• Easier maintenance: Standardized code is easier to maintain and refactor
• Faster onboarding: New team members can get up to speed more quickly

By automating formatting in VS Code, you eliminate the manual work of maintaining these standards and ensure consistency across your entire codebase.

Video Series Overview

Our VS Code formatting video series covers everything you need to know about setting up and configuring code formatters. Here's what you can expect:

1. Prettier Setup: Installing and configuring the popular Prettier formatter
2. ESLint Integration: Setting up ESLint for code quality and formatting
3. Language-Specific Formatters: Specialized formatters for different programming languages
4. Format on Save: Configuring VS Code to automatically format your code when saving
5. Team Configuration: Sharing formatting settings across your development team

Each video is designed to be concise yet comprehensive, with step-by-step instructions that you can follow along with at your own pace.

Setting Up Prettier in VS Code

Prettier is one of the most popular code formatters available today, supporting a wide range of languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML, CSS, JSON, and more. Our first video tutorial covers the complete setup process:

Configuring Prettier

Prettier is designed to be opinionated, but it still offers various configuration options to match your team's preferences. Here's a sample configuration file you can use as a starting point:

// .prettierrc
{
  "printWidth": 80,
  "tabWidth": 2,
  "useTabs": false,
  "semi": true,
  "singleQuote": false,
  "trailingComma": "es5",
  "bracketSpacing": true,
  "arrowParens": "always",
  "endOfLine": "lf"
}

In our video, we explain each of these options in detail and show you how to customize them according to your preferences.

Keyboard Shortcuts

To maximize your productivity, we recommend setting up keyboard shortcuts for formatting. The default VS Code shortcut for formatting is:

• Windows/Linux: Shift + Alt + F
• macOS: Shift + Option + F

You can also customize these shortcuts in VS Code's keyboard shortcuts settings, which we demonstrate in our video tutorial.

Setting Up ESLint in VS Code

While Prettier focuses on code formatting, ESLint helps identify and fix code quality issues and potential bugs. Our second video tutorial covers ESLint setup and integration with Prettier:

Configuring ESLint

ESLint is highly configurable, allowing you to enable or disable specific rules according to your project's needs. Here's a basic configuration that works well with Prettier:

// .eslintrc.json
{
  "env": {
    "browser": true,
    "es2021": true,
    "node": true
  },
  "extends": [
    "eslint:recommended",
    "plugin:react/recommended",
    "plugin:@typescript-eslint/recommended",
    "prettier"
  ],
  "parser": "@typescript-eslint/parser",
  "parserOptions": {
    "ecmaFeatures": {
      "jsx": true
    },
    "ecmaVersion": 12,
    "sourceType": "module"
  },
  "plugins": [
    "react",
    "@typescript-eslint",
    "prettier"
  ],
  "rules": {
    "prettier/prettier": "error",
    "no-console": "warn"
  }
}

Our video explains how to install the necessary dependencies and configure ESLint to work harmoniously with Prettier.

Custom ESLint Rules

One of ESLint's strengths is its extensibility. You can create custom rules or use community-created rule sets to enforce specific coding standards. In our video, we demonstrate how to:

• Add custom rules to your ESLint configuration
• Use popular rule sets like Airbnb or Standard
• Create project-specific rules that match your team's preferences
• Disable rules for specific files or code blocks when necessary

Language-Specific Formatters

While Prettier and ESLint cover many languages, some programming languages benefit from specialized formatters. Our third video covers setting up language-specific formatters:

JavaScript & TypeScript

For JavaScript and TypeScript, Prettier and ESLint provide excellent coverage. Our video shows how to:

• Configure TypeScript-specific ESLint rules
• Set up formatting for modern JavaScript features
• Handle JSX/TSX formatting in React projects

HTML & CSS

For HTML and CSS, we recommend:

• Prettier: Works well for basic HTML and CSS formatting
• Stylelint: For more advanced CSS linting and formatting
• HTMLHint: For HTML-specific linting rules

Our video demonstrates how to install and configure these tools for optimal HTML and CSS formatting.

Python

For Python development, we recommend:

• Black: An opinionated Python formatter
• Pylint: For Python code quality checks
• isort: For sorting imports automatically

Our video shows how to install these extensions and configure them to work together seamlessly.

Java

For Java development:

• Google Java Format: For consistent Java formatting
• CheckStyle: For enforcing coding standards

We demonstrate the installation and configuration process for these Java tools in our video.

PHP

For PHP development:

• PHP CS Fixer: For fixing PHP coding standards
• PHP_CodeSniffer: For detecting violations of coding standards

Our video covers the setup process for these PHP formatting tools in VS Code.

Setting Up Format on Save

One of the most powerful features in VS Code is the ability to automatically format your code whenever you save a file. Our fourth video covers this time-saving feature:

To enable format on save, you need to add the following to your VS Code settings:

// settings.json
{
  "editor.defaultFormatter": null,
  "editor.formatOnSave": true,
  "[javascript]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode"
  },
  "[typescript]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode"
  },
  "[html]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode"
  },
  "[css]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode"
  }
}

Common Issues & Troubleshooting

Even with the best setup, you might encounter formatting issues. Our fifth video covers common problems and their solutions:

Formatter Conflicts

One common issue is conflicts between different formatters. For example, if you have both Prettier and ESLint trying to format the same files, you might get inconsistent results. Our video shows how to resolve these conflicts by:

• Setting the default formatter for each file type
• Using the ESLint Prettier plugin to integrate the two tools
• Configuring formatter priority in VS Code settings

Extension Issues

Sometimes VS Code extensions can conflict or have bugs. Our troubleshooting video covers:

• How to identify problematic extensions
• Updating extensions to their latest versions
• Reinstalling extensions when necessary
• Using the VS Code command palette to debug formatter issues

Workspace vs User Settings

VS Code offers two levels of settings: user settings (which apply globally) and workspace settings (which apply only to the current project). Our sixth video explains:

The video covers:

• When to use workspace vs user settings
• How to create and manage workspace settings
• How settings precedence works in VS Code
• Best practices for organizing your settings

Maintaining Team Consistency

For development teams, maintaining consistent formatting across all team members is crucial. Our final video covers strategies for team-wide formatting consistency:

Using EditorConfig

EditorConfig helps maintain consistent coding styles across different editors and IDEs. Our video shows:

• How to create an .editorconfig file
• Basic EditorConfig settings for common scenarios
• How EditorConfig interacts with other formatters

# .editorconfig
root = true

[*]
end_of_line = lf
insert_final_newline = true
charset = utf-8
trim_trailing_whitespace = true
indent_style = space
indent_size = 2

[*.{js,ts,jsx,tsx}]
indent_size = 2

[*.py]
indent_size = 4

[*.java]
indent_size = 4

[*.php]
indent_size = 4

[*.md]
trim_trailing_whitespace = false

Sharing VS Code Settings

VS Code allows you to share settings across your team by committing the .vscode folder to your repository. Our video demonstrates:

• Creating and configuring the .vscode folder
• Which settings should be shared vs kept personal
• How to handle different operating systems in a team

Pre-commit Hooks

To ensure that all committed code follows your formatting standards, you can use Git pre-commit hooks. Our video shows:

• Setting up Husky for managing Git hooks
• Configuring lint-staged to run formatters before commits
• Creating a foolproof system that prevents unformatted code from being committed

// package.json
{
  "husky": {
    "hooks": {
      "pre-commit": "lint-staged"
    }
  },
  "lint-staged": {
    "*.{js,jsx,ts,tsx}": [
      "eslint --fix",
      "prettier --write"
    ],
    "*.{css,scss}": [
      "stylelint --fix",
      "prettier --write"
    ],
    "*.{html,json,md}": [
      "prettier --write"
    ]
  }
}

Conclusion

Setting up proper code formatting in VS Code is an investment that pays off immediately in terms of code quality, team productivity, and developer satisfaction. Our video series provides everything you need to get started with one-click formatting setup.

Remember that the goal of automated formatting is not just to make your code look pretty, but to eliminate discussions about code style so your team can focus on what really matters: building great software.

We hope these tutorials help you streamline your development workflow. If you have any questions or suggestions for future videos, please let us know in the comments section below each video.

Happy coding, and enjoy your perfectly formatted code!

# pyproject.toml
[tool.black]
line-length = 88
target-version = ['py38']
include = '\.pyi?$'
extend-exclude = '''
/(
    \.eggs
  | \.git
  | \.venv
  | build
  | dist
)/
'''

{
  "editor.formatOnSave": true,
  "editor.formatOnPaste": true,
  "editor.codeActionsOnSave": {
    "source.fixAll.eslint": true
  },
  "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode",
  "prettier.singleQuote": true,
  "prettier.trailingComma": "none"
}