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Live Templates are customizable rules that allow developers to abbreviate repetitive text patterns or surround code fragments with repetitive constructs in the editor.
When a user types the designated abbreviation followed by a configurable expansion key (usually Tab), the IDE transforms 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 advances to the next position in the editor.
Another use-case for live templates is surrounding the selected code with additional constructs. When a user selects a code fragment and invokes the Code | Surround With... action and chooses the template from the list, the code is wrapped with the content defined in the template.
Consider the following Java method with the selected fragment:
public void testMethod() {
<selection>getActions()</selection>
}
Invoking the Code | Surround With... action and selecting the Iterate Iterable or array template would transform the code to:
public void testMethod() {
for (Action action : getActions()) {
<cursor>
}
}
See the section for the information on how to implement more advanced code surrounding.
{type="note"}
For more information about creating Custom Live Templates, refer to the corresponding documentation.
These sections describe how to add Live Templates, and their associated building blocks, to plugins.