IntelliPrompt Code Snippet Provider

Languages can choose to support IntelliPrompt code snippets that provide a way to insert pre-defined fragments of text into the editor. Each code snippet can declare multiple fields of text, and when a code snippet template session is activated in SyntaxEditor, the text is inserted and the end user can tab between the fields to edit their values.

Basic Concepts

Code snippet providers, represented by the ICodeSnippetProvider interface and implemented by the CodeSnippetProvider class, serve several purposes when registered as a service on a language:

They let other code know that code snippets are supported for the language.
They make the available code snippets accessible.
They allow for selection sessions to be opened.
They watch for Tab to be pressed after a code snippet shortcut, and open a template session in response.
They allow for the various template session adornments to be displayed.

A CodeSnippetProvider class instance can be used directly as the service.

Loading a Root Folder

The ICodeSnippetProvider.RootFolder property needs to be set to an ICodeSnippetFolder instance that has loaded code snippet metadata into itself or one of its nested folders. This is required for certain functionality to be enabled.

The IntelliPrompt code snippets topic discusses ways to populate a folder, including the ability to recursively load from a file system folder.

Setting Case Sensitivity

The ICodeSnippetProvider.IsCaseSensitive property can be set to false for languages that don't require that code snippet shortcuts be matched with exact case.

Registering with a Language

Any object that implements ICodeSnippetProvider can be associated with a syntax language by registering it as an ICodeSnippetProvider service on the language.

This code registers a code snippet provider in the codeSnippetProvider variable with the syntax language that is already declared in the language variable:

language.RegisterService(codeSnippetProvider);

Ordering Providers