Allow autoSave and formatOnSave #45997

andrecasal · 2018-03-16T19:19:22Z

VS Code documentation regarding configuration says that formatOnSave only works when autoSave is turned off.

The formatOnSave config:

// Format a file on save. A formatter must be available, the file must not be auto-saved,
// and editor must not be shutting down.
  "editor.formatOnSave": true,

and the autoSave config:

// Controls auto save of dirty files. Accepted values:  'off', 'afterDelay',
// 'onFocusChange' (editor loses focus), 'onWindowChange' (window loses focus).
// If set to 'afterDelay', you can configure the delay in 'files.autoSaveDelay'.
  "files.autoSave": "off",

// Controls the delay in ms after which a dirty file is saved automatically.
// Only applies when 'files.autoSave' is set to 'afterDelay'
  "files.autoSaveDelay": 1000,

Both live inside the user settings.

It would be a great developer experience to have files automatically saved AND format the documents automatically.

There's a closed issue with a similar title #37820, but the author was looking to solve an extension bug and it got closed when it was solved. I think this issue remains an important feature request.

The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered:

campelo · 2018-10-09T16:00:52Z

I think this issue remains an important feature request.

I agree with you.

eladcandroid · 2018-12-19T14:00:04Z

Any news about this issue? It can be very helpful...

varthc · 2019-02-16T04:20:35Z

+1 This feature would be awesome.

ildarmgt · 2019-03-03T18:26:50Z

Might be related: it doesn't say it for "files.trimTrailingWhitespace": true, but it doesn't seem to trim trailing white spaces when it auto saves "files.autoSave": "afterDelay", but works when you save the file (like with ctrl-s). Similar behavior seen elsewhere. Autosave treated differently than regular Save on my end.

andraz · 2019-03-26T19:41:16Z

I would paraphrase the request a bit:

How can we get the functionality a setting named "editor.formatOnAutoSave": true would provide us?

At the moment I am struggling to make Prettier format code as soon as I change focus which triggers auto-save. Both work on their own, but do not work together.

expected result:
File gets formatted first, then gets saved.

actual result:
File gets saved without formatting.

edit: We could manage to hack together a solution using this extension and prettier's command line interface, but why should all other less hack-wise users stay affected by this bug?

https://github.com/emeraldwalk/vscode-runonsave

JerryGreen · 2019-05-31T16:58:21Z

expected result:
File gets formatted first, then gets saved.

actual result:
File gets saved without formatting.

This is not true. Having autoSave and formatOnSave both set to true, it works properly: it gets formatted, then saved.

However, I agree that "editor.formatOnAutoSave": true | false setting is a good idea. I don't want my file to be formatted on autoSave, I want it to get formatted on a manual save only.

If you try to make a keybinding cmd+s to assign editor.action.format, then yes - it works improperly, it gets saved, then gets formatted.

lopsch · 2019-10-09T18:49:33Z

expected result:
File gets formatted first, then gets saved.

actual result:
File gets saved without formatting.

This is not true. Having autoSave and formatOnSave both set to true, it works properly: it gets formatted, then saved.

autoSave can't be set to true. If it is set to afterDelay the formatOnSave will not work even if this is set to true:

Format a file on save. A formatter must be available, the file must not be saved after delay, and the editor must not be shutting down.

At least this is my understanding.

JerryGreen · 2019-10-09T19:04:04Z

@lopsch oh sorry by autoSave set to true I actually meant it's not disabled, and in my case it's set to onFocusChange. What I have, basically, in my settings.json:

"editor.codeActionsOnSave": {
  "source.fixAll.tslint": true
},
"editor.formatOnSave": true,
"files.autoSave": "onFocusChange",

And it works just fine. At least from VSCode side. Sometimes it happened that tslint was broken in newer versions, so I had to change version to an older one (currently 1.2.1 TSLint for VSCode works just fine).

So I don't see any problem here, actually. And...

It would be a great developer experience to have files automatically saved AND format the documents automatically.

It's already working in such a way. Both Prettier (which is controlled by editor.formatOnSave) and TSLint (which is controlled by editor.codeActionsOnSave and source.fixAll.tslint). At least they are working for me. And automatically on save, which is happened when my tab lose its focus (or if I save manually too).

So I think this issue should be closed.

andrecasal · 2019-10-09T20:43:08Z

This feature isn't yet implemented @JerryGreen

To reproduce:

Copy this to an HTML file:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
	<title>Hello World</title>
</head>
<body>
	<div>Hello world!</div>
</body>
</html>

Set the following settings.json settings:

{
	"html.format.indentInnerHtml": true,
	"files.autoSave": "afterDelay",
	"editor.formatOnSave": true,
}

Make a change to the file and wait for the afterDelay to trigger a save.
Notice that the <head> and the <body> tags are not indented as per the "html.format.indentInnerHtml": true setting.

However, if you save the file manually by pressing Cmd+s, it will trigger a file format.

JerryGreen · 2019-10-09T20:56:33Z

@andrecasal oh, that's true, - just checked this setting. It does not work together. It has something to do with "files.autoSave": "afterDelay" setting. I don't really like this setting though. In more complex cases (than HTML formatter case) this will work in a pretty weird way, I suppose. But you're right, - it's not working.

davidbarton · 2019-12-09T10:51:58Z

For me it is very important part of developer experience. I know it is already possible to hack some linters to get the code formatted for you. For example Prettier + TSLint or rust-lang can do that.

As described above this should be possible for all formatters using simple setting. Is there a chance to get official response from team on this issue please? I see @jrieken is now assigned to the issue.

carlogonzalo · 2020-06-26T14:01:37Z

+1 for this feature and suprising that it is not possible at the moment considering awsome vscode.

rtbo · 2020-08-05T06:55:09Z

+1
I confirm that auto formatting is done with onFocusChange and onWindowChange, but not with afterDelay.

Note that some formatters take a substantial time to execute and editing experience could quickly become annoying, so the current behavior is not unsound.
An additional setting like editor.formatOnAutoSave is needed.

symonxdd · 2020-08-17T19:34:50Z

Yup, would be nice to have this feature, 2 years later...

vscode-triage-bot · 2020-10-06T08:43:05Z

We closed this issue because we don't plan to address it in the foreseeable future. You can find more detailed information about our decision-making process here. If you disagree and feel that this issue is crucial: We are happy to listen and to reconsider.

If you wonder what we are up to, please see our roadmap and issue reporting guidelines.

Thanks for your understanding and happy coding!

julix-unity · 2021-03-01T22:01:47Z

"We are happy to listen and to reconsider." - Please reconsider. Fair amount of up votes. What's the main concern with implementing this? Performance?

steinybot · 2021-03-25T08:41:50Z

What's worse is that if you manually save after the auto save delay then it doesn't run the formatter either (#119857).

maljaroudi · 2021-04-05T23:01:19Z

I don't see why we still don't have this option in vscode. If the concern on implementing this is about performance, then that's why it's an option, like any other performance impacting options.

skngetich · 2021-04-06T18:23:14Z

How can we get it to be added as a feature?
I have been waiting on this feature for 3 years now

RafaelGlober · 2021-04-07T02:00:51Z

I literally discover the "AutoSave" setting today, and instantly I started searching "how to format on autosave" and now I'm commenting on this thread... so if you can see... "format on auto save" is a real need.

ktvdev · 2021-04-10T10:42:11Z

In the same boat here, somehow missed that autosave was a thing, discovered it is, tried to make it work with format on save and no go.

I know very little about the inner-workings of VSCode since I've had little interest in that aspect of it so I'm not sure if a better workaround exists, but in the meantime the quickest solution I've found is using an extension that forces the format command.

The extension in question: Run on Save
Specifically the one I linked, the first one I tried had more downloads but didn't work for me at all.

Then in your settings.json add something along the lines of:

"runOnSave.commands": [
    {
        "match": ".ps1",
        "command": "editor.action.formatDocument",
        "runIn": "vscode"
    }
]

Enable files.autoSave as normal, match your filetype or use your own regex in settings and you should be good to go.

rudyhadoux · 2021-04-23T20:26:42Z

Hi, "format on auto save after delay" is a real need indeed.

skngetich · 2021-05-04T06:48:37Z

In the same boat here, somehow missed that autosave was a thing, discovered it is, tried to make it work with format on save and no go.

I know very little about the inner-workings of VSCode since I've had little interest in that aspect of it so I'm not sure if a better workaround exists, but in the meantime the quickest solution I've found is using an extension that forces the format command.

The extension in question: Run on Save
Specifically the one I linked, the first one I tried had more downloads but didn't work for me at all.

Then in your settings.json add something along the lines of:
"runOnSave.commands": [
    {
        "match": ".ps1",
        "command": "editor.action.formatDocument",
        "runIn": "vscode"
    }
]
Enable files.autoSave as normal, match your filetype or use your own regex in settings and you should be good to go.

As we wait for this feature.This hack by @ktvdev works

vscodebot bot assigned bpasero Mar 16, 2018

bpasero added feature-request editor formatting labels Mar 17, 2018

bpasero removed their assignment Mar 17, 2018

alexdima removed the editor label Sep 20, 2018

campelo mentioned this issue Oct 9, 2018

See issue #45997. Adjusting code to allow formatOnSave with autoSave #60289

Closed

jrieken self-assigned this Oct 22, 2019

jrieken added this to the Backlog milestone Jan 13, 2020

jrieken added the *out-of-scope label Oct 6, 2020

vscode-triage-bot closed this Oct 6, 2020

alexkuc mentioned this issue Dec 5, 2020

Format on auto save bmewburn/vscode-intelephense#1539

Closed

stamblerre mentioned this issue Dec 26, 2020

goimports does not work with autosave golang/vscode-go#1060

Closed

danielhelfand mentioned this issue Dec 29, 2020

Reconsider Issue 45997 (Allow autoSave and formatOnSave) #113543

Closed

Veykril mentioned this issue Jan 27, 2021

Format on auto-saving doesn't work rust-analyzer/rust-analyzer#3256

Open

steinybot mentioned this issue Mar 25, 2021

Format on save does nothing if the file has no changes. #119857

Closed

rl-gitpod mentioned this issue Jun 10, 2021

[build] Only add env var annotations for no-hash builds gitpod-io/dazzle#22

Merged

microsoft / vscode

Allow autoSave and formatOnSave #45997

Allow autoSave and formatOnSave #45997

andrecasal commented Mar 16, 2018 •

edited

campelo commented Oct 9, 2018

eladcandroid commented Dec 19, 2018

varthc commented Feb 16, 2019

ildarmgt commented Mar 3, 2019 •

edited

andraz commented Mar 26, 2019 •

edited

JerryGreen commented May 31, 2019

lopsch commented Oct 9, 2019

JerryGreen commented Oct 9, 2019 •

edited

andrecasal commented Oct 9, 2019 •

edited

JerryGreen commented Oct 9, 2019 •

edited

davidbarton commented Dec 9, 2019 •

edited

carlogonzalo commented Jun 26, 2020

rtbo commented Aug 5, 2020

symonxdd commented Aug 17, 2020

vscode-triage-bot commented Oct 6, 2020

julix-unity commented Mar 1, 2021

steinybot commented Mar 25, 2021

maljaroudi commented Apr 5, 2021

skngetich commented Apr 6, 2021

RafaelGlober commented Apr 7, 2021 •

edited

ktvdev commented Apr 10, 2021

rudyhadoux commented Apr 23, 2021

skngetich commented May 4, 2021

microsoft / vscode

Allow autoSave and formatOnSave #45997

Allow autoSave and formatOnSave #45997

Comments

andrecasal commented Mar 16, 2018 • edited

campelo commented Oct 9, 2018

eladcandroid commented Dec 19, 2018

varthc commented Feb 16, 2019

ildarmgt commented Mar 3, 2019 • edited

andraz commented Mar 26, 2019 • edited

JerryGreen commented May 31, 2019

lopsch commented Oct 9, 2019

JerryGreen commented Oct 9, 2019 • edited

andrecasal commented Oct 9, 2019 • edited

JerryGreen commented Oct 9, 2019 • edited

davidbarton commented Dec 9, 2019 • edited

carlogonzalo commented Jun 26, 2020

rtbo commented Aug 5, 2020

symonxdd commented Aug 17, 2020

vscode-triage-bot commented Oct 6, 2020

julix-unity commented Mar 1, 2021

steinybot commented Mar 25, 2021

maljaroudi commented Apr 5, 2021

skngetich commented Apr 6, 2021

RafaelGlober commented Apr 7, 2021 • edited

ktvdev commented Apr 10, 2021

rudyhadoux commented Apr 23, 2021

skngetich commented May 4, 2021

andrecasal commented Mar 16, 2018 •

edited

ildarmgt commented Mar 3, 2019 •

edited

andraz commented Mar 26, 2019 •

edited

JerryGreen commented Oct 9, 2019 •

edited

andrecasal commented Oct 9, 2019 •

edited

JerryGreen commented Oct 9, 2019 •

edited

davidbarton commented Dec 9, 2019 •

edited

RafaelGlober commented Apr 7, 2021 •

edited