Live templates are customizable rules that allow developers to abbreviate repetitive patterns of text in the editor. When a user types the designated abbreviation followed by a configurable expansion key (usually Tab), the IDE will transform the preceding input sequence to its full-length output, and update the cursor position. For example, consider a for loop. Typically, the end user would need to type for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {<Enter><Tab><Enter><Enter>}<Up>. This pattern may be shortened to fori<Tab> and the remaining contents will be expanded, leaving the following structure:
for(int i = [|]; i < []; i++) {
[]
}
As the user completes each section of the for loop and presses Tab, the cursor will advance to the next position in the editor. For more information about creating your own Custom Live Templates, you may refer to the corresponding documentation. In this tutorial, we will illustrate how to add default Custom Live Templates to an IntelliJ Platform plugin, and assign valid contexts where these templates can take on added functionality based on the surrounding code and file type. We will discuss how to export existing live templates, and bundle them within a plugin to give users added typing efficiency when using a custom language.