Inline Parameters for VSCode

An extension for Visual Studio Code that adds inline parameter annotations when calling a function.

This is a feature that was popularised by JetBrains' IDEs that can give you additional context when reading your code, making it easier to understand what different function parameters refer to by showing the parameter's name inline.

No longer do you have to be confused about whether the needle or haystack comes first, or have to slow down your workflow by going to a function's source to figure out what it does!

Language Support

Currently, this extension supports the following languages:

• JavaScript (and with React)
• TypeScript (and with React)
• PHP (with the Intelephense language server)
• Lua (with Sumneko's Lua language server)

Want to contribute additional language support?

Additional language support is welcome as pull requests, and highly encouraged. You can see the source code to see how existing languages have been implemented.

Currently, the extension has 2 major steps that all language drivers must implement:

1. Parsing the source code of the currently active file (eg. by using an AST library - AST Explorer can assist in navigating it) to retrieve a list of positions where annotations should be inserted
2. Getting the name of the parameters to use as the annotations. Existing language drivers does this by triggering the hover providers for the function being called, and extracting the parameter names from the description

Settings

The extension provides a handful of configuration settings you can use to customise the look and behaviour of the parameters.

Name	Description	Default
inline-parameters.enabled	Show inline parameters	true
inline-parameters.leadingCharacters	Characters to be shown before each parameter annotation	""
inline-parameters.trailingCharacters	Characters to be shown after each parameter annotation	":"
inline-parameters.showPhpDollar	Show the $ character before PHP parameter names	false
inline-parameters.hideSingleParameters	Hide inline parameters if a function only has 1 parameter	false
inline-parameters.parameterCase	Forcibly change the case of the inline parameter name. Options are normal, lowercase or uppercase	"normal"
inline-parameters.showVariadicNumbers	Show the number of times a variadic parameter has been called	true
inline-parameters.hideRedundantAnnotations	If the value given to a parameter is the same as the parameter name, hide the parameter name	true

There are also a handful of settings that can be used to customise the styling of the annotation to your own personal preference.

Name	Description	Default
inline-parameters.fontWeight	Annotation styling of font-weight CSS property	"400"
inline-parameters.fontStyle	Annotation styling of font-style CSS property	"italic"
inline-parameters.fontSize	Annotation styling of font size CSS property	0.85em
inline-parameters.margin	Annotation styling of margin CSS property	0.25em
inline-parameters.padding	Annotation styling of padding CSS property	0.25em 0.5em
inline-parameters.border	Annotation styling of border CSS property	none
inline-parameters.borderRadius	Annotation styling of border-radius CSS property	0.25em

Themable Colours

You can change the default foreground and background colours in the workbench.colorCustomizations property in user settings.

Name	Description
inlineparameters.annotationForeground	Specifies the foreground colour for the annotations
inlineparameters.annotationBackground	Specifies the background colour for the annotations

Commands

Name	Description	Keyboard Shortcut
inline-parameters.toggle	Hide / show inline parameters	Ctrl K A or ⌘ K A

Credits / Links

• Liam Hammett
• VSCode's Extension Samples, which was a huge help to get started
• Benjamin Lannon for the (no longer maintained) VSCode JS Annotations extension (where some AST parsing for the Javascript languages was borrowed from)
• Bobby Zrncev for the IntelliJ Parameter Hints extension which achieves the same for PHP
• All Contributors

License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see the license file for more information.