Can you customize code folding?

Question

Is it possible to customize the way code folding works in Visual Studio Code?

I use a common pattern of defining regions of code across a variety of different document

Answer 1

FoldingRangeProvider can be used if you are looking to contribute custom folding logic in an extension.

Be sure to set your VS Code version in engines in package.json to 1.23, the version that introduced this.

Here's how you'd use one.

export function activate(context: ExtensionContext) {
    languages.registerFoldingRangeProvider({ scheme: 'file', language: 'markdown' }, new MyFoldingRangeProvider());
}

class MyFoldingRangeProvider implements FoldingRangeProvider {
    provideFoldingRanges(document: TextDocument, context: FoldingContext, token: CancellationToken): FoldingRange[] {
        return detectRanges().map(({ lineStart, lineEnd }) => new FoldingRange(lineStart, lineEnd));
    }
}

Answer 2

Now, there are three ways to achieve customized folding in a VSCode extension.

1. Can define regex as folding markers in [language-name].configuration.json file. (However, we cannot have much customization with this approach)

{
  "folding": {
    "markers": {
      "start": "starting regex",
      "end": "ending regex"
    }
  }
}

2. Can define a FoldingRangeProvider from the extension side as described in this answer. FoldingRange in vscode package supports folding customization with startLine, endLine, and foldingKind.

3. Can use Language Server support with textDocument/foldingRange. FoldingRange in vscode-languageserver-protocol supports folding customization with startLine, endLine, startCharacter, endCharacter, and foldingKind.

Check this for more details.

Answer 3

Unfortunately, not at the moment. There is a an open issue in github for this very topic.