Get zprint for VS Code

There exists an independently developed extension for VS Code which gives you access to zprint while using VS Code.

You can find it by searching the extensions for "zprint".

It is called vscode-clj-zprint.

Differences from "standard" zprint

A couple of things to note (as of November 2021) about this extension:

The zprint version it uses is 1.0.2

It is built to use zprint version is 1.0.2, while the latest zprint release is 1.2.0. While 1.2.0 is clearly better in several ways from 1.0.2, in most cases you probably wouldn't notice the difference.

Use of .zprintrc files varies from zprint pre-built binaries

The configuration model is slightly different from zprint. The VS Code extension will read your .zprintrc files, but the way it uses them varies from the zprint pre-built binaries. The extension will look for a .zprintrc file in the current directory, and if it finds one, it will use only that .zprintrc file. If it doesn't find a .zprintrc file in the current directory, it will look for a .zprintrc file in the users home directory. If it finds one there, it will use it.

The major difference is that zprint will always use the .zprintrc file in the users home directory, and if that .zprintrc file has {:cwd-zprintrc? true} or {:search-config? true}, then it will also apply any additional configuration found in a .zprintrc file in the current directory (having already applied the configuration information found in the .zprintrc file in the users home directory).

So, if you are using this extension, ensure that whatever configuration you have placed in your .zprintrc file resides entirely in a single .zprintrc file in either your home directory or the current directory.

This isn't a huge problem if you are aware of it, but could easily trip you up if you are already using zprint with configuration files in both places.

Overall Experience

Overall, this extension works well in VS Code. You can format a whole file, or if you select an entire function, you can format just that function. It does not use zprint to format as you type, nor will it format just some random lines inside of a function. The minimum "formatable" unit is an entire function (or other top-level expression), which is a zprint requirement and not something missing from the extension itself.

Works well with zprint "File Comment API"

Note that if you are using the zprint file comment API, where you can alter the way that zprint formats a single top level function (or any expression) by giving zprint a formatting directive in a Clojure comment preceding the function, you can include that comment in the selection in VS Code and the extension will correctly interpret that comment when formatting the function.