brackets-quick-markup

Brackets Extension that creates a quick markup mode

Overview

This is an Extension for Brackets.

Features

This extension is accessed in Brackets using menu Edit > Quick Markup Mode or Ctrl-Shift-M.

A minimal bottom panel is displayed to indicate you are in quick markup mode. A "mode" is required because this extension uses a lot of keyboard shortcuts which conflict with some Brackets standard shortcuts. All other Brackets commands and editing work as expected. Conflicting shortcuts are removed when this extension is enable and restored when it's disabled.

Note: Do not install extensions while in Quick Markup mode because shortcut conflicts will not be resolved.

Quick Markup mode allows fast HTML markup generation as you type similar to what how a rich text editor works. It was created with text formatting in mind, but can be configured for any kind of markup. It currently only works in HTML and PHP documents.

Text Formatting

Start adding markup by pressing Ctrl-P to create a paragraph using a <p> tag. The tag will be wrapped around the currently selected "raw" text.

As you are typing, pressing Ctrl-Enter closes the current <p> tag and starts a new one. To convert a <p> tag to a heading, where heading refers to any <h1> through <h6> tag, press Ctrl-Shift-1 through Ctrl-Shift-6, respectively. At the end of a heading tag, pressing Ctrl-Enter closes the heading tag, and then starts a new <p> tag, as this is most likely what you'll want next.

You can also use Ctrl-Enter in the middle of a paragragh or heading to split the tag. Pressing Ctrl-Delete at the end of the (inner) text of a <p> or heading tag joins the tag with the following sibling (if tag is the same). Pressing Ctrl-Backspace at the start of the (inner) text joins with the previous tag in a similar manner.

Inline Text Formatting

Selecting text and pressing Ctrl-B applies a <strong> tag. Pressing Ctrl-B again removes the <strong> tag. There is similar behavior pressing Ctrl-I for <em> and pressing Ctrl-D for <del>.

Resulting text is properly indented based on Brackets preferences and the appropriate line end characters are inserted for the current operating system.

You can switch documents while in quick markup mode.

Default shortcuts used to generate markup:

Note: Ctrl + [key] inserts new tag. Ctrl + Shift + [key] changes existing tag.

Note: Ctrl refers to Ctrl key on Windows or Cmd key on Mac.

Use Edit > Quick Markup Mode Help or Ctrl-Alt-M to see a list of all shortcuts used by this extension.

##Configuration

The tags and shortcuts are defined in data.json, so they are fully configurable.

Sample json configuration file:

"p": {                        // shortcut letter, must be unique
  "tagName": "p",             // tag name (required)
  "tagDisplay": "p.x",        // tag display string (optional), otherwise tagName is used
  "type": "block",            // "block", "heading", or "inline" (required)
  "attributes": "class='x'"   // attribute string (optional)
},
"8": {
  "tagName": "span",
  "type": "inline",
  "nestable": true            // nestable (inline only), default is false
                              // non-nestable tags are toggled on/off (e.g. <em>)
},
"9": {
  "tagName": "br",
  "type": "inline",
  "isEmpty": true,            // <br> vs <p></p>, default is false
  "insertTrailingSlash": true // <br> vs <br/>, default is false
}

Note that comments are not allowed in json files. These are added for information only.

Once this extension is installed in Brackets, use Help > Show Extensions Folder to navigate to the extensions folder. Hint: drag the folder onto Brackets window to quickly switch the current Brackets project to that folder. Open the user/brackets-quick-markup folder to find the data.json file.

License

MIT-licensed -- see LICENSE.md for details.