Creating a snippet file

Code snippets are templates that make it easier to enter repeating code patterns, such as loops or conditional-statements. For more information on snippets, refer to Visual Studio’s documentation on snippets.

Snippet files in Template Designer are in JSON format. Each snippet is defined under a snippet name and has a prefix, body and description.

 

  • The prefix defines how this snippet is selected from IntelliSense and tab completion.
  • The body is the content and either a single string or an array of strings of which each element will be inserted as separate line.
  • The description is the description used in the IntelliSense drop down.
  • With tabstops, you can make the editor cursor move inside a snippet. Use $1, $2 to specify cursor locations. The number is the order in which tabstops will be visited, whereas $0 denotes the final cursor position. Multiple occurrences of the same tabstop are linked and updated in sync.
  • Placeholders are tabstops with values, like ${1:label}, ${2:another} for placeholders. The placeholder text will be inserted and selected such that it can be easily changed. 

Example Snippet

Copy
Sample snippet for placing a description of the product
{
    "IfProduct": {
        "prefix": "ifProduct",
        "body": [
            "if (InvoiceDocumentProduct.Element(\"Description\").Value != \"${1:Product}\")",
            "{"
        ],
        "description": "Does an if statement on the Product Description"
    },
    "if": {
        "prefix": "if",    
        "body": [    
        "if (${1:condition}){",
    ],
    "description": "Opens an if statement."
    }
}