Skip to content

[draft] Anatomy of a code hint provider [hooks and hacks]

Jump to bottom
Swagatam Mitra edited this page Mar 28, 2018 · 2 revisions

Code hint provider in Brackets

How to write a code hint providers for Brackets?

IntelliSense is the heart of any modern code editor and code hints are integral part of this. Brackets, being a modern code editor has a robust hinting framework which can be extended very easily by writing hint plugins. To write a hint plugin, there are few points which needs to be answered first -

  • Which language/mode is being catered using this plugin?
  • How to populate the hint list?
  • When to show the hint list?
  • How to show the hint list?
  • What information can be shown as part of the hint list?
Name Description
hasHints* CodeHintManager uses this mandatory hook to query whether this particular hint provider can provide hint in the current context.
getHints* CodeHintManager uses this mandatory hook to fetch hint list in the current context if this provider is selected to be the code hint provider for the current hinting session.
insertHint* CodeHintManager uses this mandatory hook to let the active hint provider handle the selected token insertion.
Clone this wiki locally