How a VS Code Extension "Todo Tree" can make your coding easier | Todo Tree Configuration | Highlighting Comments in VS Code

Highlighting Comments with Todo Tree VS Code Extension

The Todo Tree extension quickly searches your workspace for comment tags like TODO and FIXME, and displays them in a tree view in the activity bar. The view can be dragged out of the activity bar into the explorer pane (or anywhere else you would prefer it to be).

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📌 So let's first download and enable it from the extensions.

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It's now downloaded and has default configurations. But let's make custom ruleset.

📌 Go to the Manage Option in VS Code

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📌 Now Click on settings

The settings file opens.

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📌 Now we have to open the settings.json File. Click on the button at the top right corner.

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📌 Now you can paste the below code there and make your custom changes in it!

{
  "todo-tree.highlights.defaultHighlight": {
    "icon": "alert",
    "type": "text-and-comment",
    "foreground": "black",
    "background": "white",
    "opacity": 50,
    "iconColour": "blue",
    "gutterIcon": true
  },
  "todo-tree.highlights.customHighlight": {
    "TODO": {
      "icon": "checkbox",
      "foreground": "black",
      "background": "yellow",
      "iconColour": "yellow"
    },
    "NOTE": {
      "icon": "note",
      "foreground": "white",
      "background": "cornflowerblue",
      "iconColour": "cornflowerblue"
    },
    "USEFUL": {
      "icon": "verified",
      "foreground": "black",
      "background": "mediumaquamarine",
      "iconColour": "mediumaquamarine"
    },
    "COMMENT": {
      "icon": "comment",
      "foreground": "white",
      "background": "gray",
      "iconColour": "white"
    },
    "LEARN": {
      "icon": "bookmark",
      "foreground": "white",
      "background": "hotpink",
      "iconColour": "hotpink"
    },
    "FIXME": {
      "icon": "tools",
      "foreground": "crimson",
      "background": "burlywood",
      "iconColour": "burlywood"
    },
    "RECHECK": {
      "icon": "codescan",
      "foreground": "white",
      "background": "chocolate",
      "iconColour": "chocolate"
    },
    "INCOMPLETE": {
      "icon": "alert",
      "foreground": "white",
      "background": "mediumvioletred",
      "iconColour": "mediumvioletred"
    },
    "BUG": {
      "icon": "bug",
      "foreground": "white",
      "background": "crimson",
      "iconColour": "crimson"
    },
    "SEE NOTES": {
      "icon": "note",
      "foreground": "white",
      "background": "teal",
      "iconColour": "teal"
    },
    "POST": {
      "icon": "share",
      "foreground": "white",
      "background": "green",
      "iconColour": "green"
    },
    "[ ]": {
      "icon": "check",
      "foreground": "black",
      "background": "white",
      "iconColour": "yellow"
    },
    "[x]": {
      "icon": "check",
      "foreground": "white",
      "background": "green",
      "iconColour": "green"
    }
  },
  "todo-tree.general.tags": [
    "BUG",
    "SEE NOTES",
    "HACK",
    "FIXME",
    "RECHECK",
    "INCOMPLETE",
    "TODO",
    "NOTE",
    "POST",
    "USEFUL",
    "LEARN",
    "COMMENT",
    "[ ]",
    "[x]"
  ],
  "todo-tree.regex.regex": "(//|#|<!--|;|/\\*|^|^\\s*(-|\\d+.))\\s*($TAGS).*(\\n\\s*//\\s{2,}.*)*"
}

📌 Here is the final result-

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📌 Every Comment comes as a object in this json file. The structure of the object is-

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📌 You can add more objects based on this structure and include the object name in-

Few things to know before editing the configuration

• icon - used to set a different icon in the tree view. Must be a valid octicon.

• iconColour - used to set the colour of the icon in the tree. If not specified, it will try to use the foreground colour or the background colour.
• gutterIcon - set to true to show the icon in the editor gutter.
• Foreground and background-color can be specified using HTML/CSS colour names (e.g. "Salmon"), RGB hex values (e.g. "#80FF00"), RGB CSS style values (e.g. "rgb(255,128,0)")
• fontWeight, fontStyle, textDecoration - can be used to style the highlight with standard CSS values.

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And we are-

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Comments

[Jeb]

Thank you!!!

[Jae Hong Lee]

you need to use #RRGGBBAA format if you want to make exact same color as css color names regardless of vscode theme color.

i.e. crimson --> #dc143cff instead of #dc143c

[Christophe Avonture]

Very nice article and snippets. Thanks!

[Mohammed Hamdi]

Thanks 💙

[Lawrence]

How do you use it for comment? /* */

[devkoustav]

Well I have included /* */ format in todo-tree.regex.regex too! Also you can use other formats too based on the file type!

[Sri Balaji S]

Thanks. I will check it out.

[Micheal Great]

The problem maybe typographical error tho, because i've encounter such several times....
just calmand cross check your codes again

[Ar Rakin]

Absolutely Amazing!

[devkoustav]

Thanks✨

[devkoustav]

Sounds interesting! Guess I'll check it out.