Demo

Hinty (formely: Assistant) is language and framework agnostic.

Example workspace configuration for Angular/TypeScript. It informs about a bad boolean Input declaration in Angular component. Normally it does not trigger build or linter errors and is a hard to track problem:

{
 ...
 "settings": {
  "assistant": {
   "rules": [
    {
     "regex": "@Input\\\\(\\\\) .*: false;",
     "message": "Define property value with =, not with:"
    }
   ]
  }
 },
 ...
}

Result:

Hinty - Dynamic Hints For Your Code

Are you annoyed that your notes on hard to fix issues are not available when you need them the most - while coding? Is setting standards for the team code broken even if you have a centralized place for rules because it i hard to keep tabs on them all the time?

Never make the same mistakes again!

At last there is a solution to these problems. Let me present you a groundbreaking Visual Studio Code extension. Hinty will boost your team code quality and performance.

No more looking into documentation. Now you don't need to search through piles of notes to find what you need. Now you can write notes that will pop-up exactly when you or your team member writes a code that they apply to.

The extension is designed to make the process super easy:

1. Write notes and define RegEx rules when they should show up
2. Use your favourite version control software to share rules
3. Rules will automatically show up for all team member when they need them

Installation

1. Go to Visual Studio Code
2. Go to Extensions from left side bar
3. Find "Hinty"
4. Install it
5. Copy above rule and test if it works
6. Boost your development speed and quality

Extension in the Visual Studio Code Marketplace:

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=tomasz-smykowski.assistant

How to install ready-made rulesets?

Hinty is language and framework agnostic. The database of ready-made rulesets will grow over time.

Available ready-made rulesets (in rulesets folder in the repo):

• html.txt - 3
• typescript.txt - 1
• react.txt - 1
• sql.txt (by Chris Young) - 8
• angular.txt - 15
• react.txt
• js.txt - 10
• css.txt - 11
• general.txt - 1

Total: over 50 hints!

Combine suitable rulesets for you stack eg. for Angular combine TypeScript, HTML, Angular, JS, CSS and general rules.

If you have a set of rules for any language / library create MR, or send it in any way, to be included here!

COMMIT YOUR HINTS!!!!

How to add your own Hinty rules?

You can add rules to workspace settings file, and/or to user settings file depending on your needs.

1a. If you want to add settings to workspace, open Visual Studio Code Workspace:

a) If you don't have it, choose file "Save Workspace As..." b) Press CTRL + ALT + P to open options c) Find/write "Preferences: Open Workspace Settings (JSON) and open it

1b. If you want to add settings to user settings, open Visual Studio Code User settings:

b) Press CTRL + ALT + P to open options c) Find/write "Preferences: Open Settings (JSON) and open it

2. In the section settings add a item "assistant" and under it an item "rules" and under it an array of rules.

Each rule should contain:

regex - a string with a RegEx rule message - text that should be displayed when the rule is trigerred

How to add RegEx modifiers?

On default RegEx rules are processed with a 'g' modifier. You can change this behaviour. For example by adding an 'i' modifier to make the rule case insensitive. All RegEx modifiers are supported by the extension. How to add modifier?

1. Add a property "modifiers" to a rule and put there local modifier letters. For example: 'gi'.
2. Add a property "modifiers" on top of assistant JSON settings to set global modifiers for your rules

If both modifiers are set, local modifiers will be used.

How to add multiline rule?

Set modifiers to "s"

How to limit the rule to a specific file extension or file?

You can add "fileRegex" property to a rule. It is a RegEx that indicates what file, files you want the rule to be checked against. For example, to check only files with scss extension, you set:

fileRegex: '^.*\\.scss$'

Dash indicates a start of the file name, dollar an end .* - any characters any number of times \. - escaped dot (it has a special meaning in RegEx). Since \ has a special meaning in JSON, it is escaped with another slash scss - the extension you are looking for

When adding file names remember to espace special characters e.g. dot character.

Licence

You can:

• install extension,
• use the extension,
• use rules

for free for whatever you want, including commercial use

FAQ

How to inspire to write my own rules?

Please read an articles of rules authors. They covers ideas for rules and concept of how to write them:

Angular, CSS, JS: https://medium.com/@tomaszs2/8-visual-studio-code-assistant-rules-for-nasty-angular-bugs-9f186277e0ab

SQL (by Chris Young): https://dev.to/ronsoak/doing-the-impossible-using-assistant-to-make-a-sql-linter-and-how-you-can-make-it-lint-whatever-you-want-2ke2

What is the difference between Hinty and SonarLint?

1. You don't need to connect to a server to use Hinty making setup as easy as installing the extension
2. Writing rules is extremely easy with Hinty, so everyone can do it right away
3. Messages show up right above the code you write in miliseconds. You can immediately fix your code

What is the difference between Hinty and regular Linters

1. Hinty is realtime. You don't need to wait for the linting process to finish. Hinty makes the coding process a much smoother experience
2. Messages show up above the code you write when you write it. You don't need to look into "Problems tab" and navigate back to the place where situation occurred. So you don't loose an eye off the code you write
3. Writing Hinty rules is extremely easy. Everyone can do it right away

Notes for extension developers

• Use nvm 14.15.0
• If you face "Error: Failed to unzip downloaded vscode at", during npm run test go to ".vscode-test" folder and extract ZIP manually
• If you face "Running extension tests from the command line is currently only supported if no other instance of Code is running" close VSCode and run npm run test from command line / bash

Authors

Tomasz Smykowski (http://tomasz-smykowski.com)

Internal notes

How to publish rules

1. Update README and CHANGELOG
2. Commit and push

How to publish extension

1. Update README and CHANGELOG
2. Update version in package.json
3. Commit and push (login to GitHub)
4. vsce package
5. login to extension manager (with b@)
6. update package tbd: how to do it via vsce publish