TODO Highlight v2

Highlight TODO:, FIXME: and any other annotations you wish within your code in VSCode.

Sometimes you forget to review the TODOs and NOTEs you've added while coding before you publish the code to production. This extension highlights them, making them harder to forget. They're shown in the file, in the output channel, and optionally as decorations in the 'overview ruler' too.

They can also be set on a per-language basis.

NB: This extension was started and maintained by wayou until 2018, when it was abandoned. I, (jgclark) then picked it up in mid-2020, using the significant PR from vonEdfa to add regexes, and also dealt with some other issues in the original repository. See CHANGELOG.md for more details. However, I'm not really a JavaScript programmer, so I welcome PRs from others to help improve it further. Thanks!

Preview

• with material night color theme:

• with material night eighties color theme:

Commands

This extension contributes the following commands to the Command palette.

• Toggle highlight : turn on/off the highlight
• List highlighted annotations : list annotations to the Output tab (when you have a folder and/or workspace open; when you are working on individual files in one or more editors, the command returns 0 results).

Installing

You can install the latest version of the extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace.

The source code is available on GitHub.

Configuration

TODO: and FIXME: are built-in keywords. You can override the look by customizing the settings.

To customize the keywords and other settings, command + , (or on Windows / Linux: File -> Preferences -> User Settings) to open the VSCode file settings.json.

	type	default	description
todohighlight.isEnable	boolean	true	Toggle the highlight, default is true.
todohighlight.enableDiagnostics	boolean	true	Enable creating diagnostic entries for open files in the problems view. Default is false.
todohighlight.isCaseSensitive	boolean	true	Whether the keywords are case sensitive or not.
todohighlight.keywords	array	N/A	An array of keywords that will be highlighted. You can also specify the style for each keyword here, and a more advanced regex to detect the item to highlight. See example below for more information.
todohighlight.keywordsPattern	string	N/A	Specify keywords via regex instead of todohighlight.keywords one by one. NB: if this is present, todohighlight.keywords will be ignored. Remember to escape the backslash if there's any in your regex (using \ (double backslash) instead of single backslash).
todohighlight.defaultStyle	object	N/A	Specify the default style for custom keywords, if not specified, build in default style will be applied. See all available properties on VSCode doc DecorationRenderOptions section
todohighlight.include	array	[ "**/*.js", "**/*.jsx", "**/*.ts", "**/*.tsx", "**/*.html", "**/*.php", "**/*.css", "**/*.scss" ]	Glob patterns that defines the files to search for. Please add other file types you need, but for performance reasons and to avoid binary files do not use {**/*.*}. Note that explicitly specifying include patterns will override the default settings, so if you want to add new patterns, and also use the defaults, you will need to include the default patterns as well.
todohighlight.exclude	array	[ "**/node_modules/**", "**/dist/**", "**/bower_components/**", "**/build/**", "**/.vscode/**", "**/.github/**", "**/_output/**", "**/*.min.*", "**/*.map" ]	Glob pattern that defines files and folders to exclude while listing annotations. Note that explicitly specifying exclude patterns will override the default settings, so if you want to add new patterns, and also use the defaults, you will need to include the default patterns as well.
todohighlight.maxFilesForSearch	number	5120	Max files for searching, mostly you don't need to configure this.
todohighlight.toggleURI	boolean	false	If the file path within the output channel is not clickable, set this to true to toggle the path pattern between <path>#<line> and <path>:<line>:<column>.

An example of a custom configuration, showing a range of the different features:

{
    "todohighlight.isEnable": true,
    "todohighlight.isCaseSensitive": true,
    "todohighlight.keywords": [
        "FIXME:", // without further details, this will use the defaultStyle
        "REVIEW:", // as will this
        // now for a more complex example
        {
            "text": "INFO:", // without a defined regex pattern this is the string that will be matched
            "color": "green",
            "backgroundColor": "rgba(0,0,0,0)", // INFO: setting the last parameter to zero (alpha channel) disables the background colour
            "border": "none",
            "isWholeLine": false
        },
        {
            "text": "WARNING:", 
            "before": {
                "contentText": "⚠️" // adds text before the highlight
            }, 
            "after": {
                "contentText": "⚠️" // adds text after the highlight
            },
            "color": "red",
            "border": "1px solid red",
            "borderRadius": "2px", // NOTE: use borderRadius along with `border` or you will see nothing change
            "backgroundColor": "rgba(0,0,0,.2)",
            "diagnosticSeverity": "warning" // Set diagnostic severity to `none`, `information`, `warning` or `error`
        },
        {
            "text": "TODO(string):", // with a regex pattern defined, this setting isn't used, but is useful as a name for this section
            "regex": {
                "pattern": "(?<=^|\"|\\s)TODO(\\(\\w+\\))?:" // this allows for TODO: or TODO(Bob): etc.
            },
            "color": "red",
            "border": "1px solid red",
            "borderRadius": "2px", //NOTE: use borderRadius along with `border` or you will see nothing change
            "backgroundColor": "rgba(0,0,0,.2)"
        },
        {
            "text": "NOTE:", // with a regex pattern defined, this setting isn't used, but is useful as a name for this section
            "color": "#ff0000",
            "backgroundColor": "yellow",
            "overviewRulerColor": "grey",
            "regex": {
                "pattern": "(?<=^|\"|\\s)NOTE[:]?(?!\\w)" // in this example, highlight `NOTE:` with or without the `:` and that's not part of another word.  (I.e.: The above will highlight 'NOTE' but not the "note" in 'SIDENOTE').
                /**
                 * Positive lookbehind (`(?<=...)`) is only supported in Node.js v9 and up.
                 * If your VSCode version is built on an earlier version the example above may not work. Simple tests:
                        * Shouldm't work: note  deNOTEd  NOTEing
                        * Should work: NOTE:  "NOTE:"
                 **/
            },
            "isWholeLine": false
        },
    ],
    "todohighlight.keywordsPattern": "TODO:|FIXME:|\\(([^\\)]+)\\)", //highlight `TODO:`,`FIXME:` or content between parentheses
    // NOTE: remember to escape the backslash if there's any in your regexp (using \\\\ instead of single backslash)"
    "todohighlight.defaultStyle": {
        "color": "red",
        "backgroundColor": "#ffab00",
        "overviewRulerColor": "#ffab00",
        "cursor": "pointer",
        "border": "1px solid #eee",
        "borderRadius": "2px",
        "isWholeLine": false,
        //other styling properties goes here ... 
    },
    "todohighlight.include": [
        "**/*.js",
        "**/*.jsx",
        "**/*.ts",
        "**/*.tsx",
        "**/*.html",
        "**/*.php",
        "**/*.css",
        "**/*.scss",
        "**/*.md",
        "**/*.mmd",
        "**/*.markdown",
        "**/*.mdown",
        "**/*.txt",
        "**/*.rb",
        "**/*.go"
    ],
    "todohighlight.exclude": [
        "**/node_modules/**",
        "**/bower_components/**",
        "**/dist/**",
        "**/build/**",
        "**/.vscode/**",
        "**/.vscode-test/**",
        "**/.github/**",
        "**/_output/**",
        "**/*.min.*",
        "**/*.map",
        "**/.next/**"
    ],
    "todohighlight.maxFilesForSearch": 5120,
    "todohighlight.toggleURI": false
}

NB: The keywords setting can be overridden in per-language configuration settings. In this example, an additional keyword is added for markdown files:

    "[markdown]": {
        "todohighlight.keywords": [
            {
                "text": "BRACKETS:",
                "color": "#000000",
                "backgroundColor": "pink",
                "regex": { 
                    "pattern": "(?<=\\{)[^\\}\\n]+(?=\\})" // highlight things in {ss} but not including line breaks
                }
            }
        ]
    }

CSS tips

This extension uses CSS that deals with color, borders, spacing etc. It is defined in this VSCode documentation). Note that this is not the exactly same as CSS.

For example, the following possibilities may not be so obvious:

• "backgroundColor": "rgba(0,0,0,0)" // setting the last parameter to zero (alpha channel) disables the background colour
• use "before": { "contentText": "⚠️" } to add text before the highlight

History

This extension was started and maintained by wayou until 2018. jgclark then picked it up in mid-2020, using significant PR #152 from vonEdfa, and dealt with some other issues in the original repository. See CHANGELOG.md for more details.