Surround text with angle brackets, expand select to angle brackets boundaries

[infctr]

So we've got this nice surround text with special characters feature that includes (), [], '', "" and surrounds the selected text with corresponding characters just by pressing (, [, ', " key.

But there's no option to surround text with angle brackets that are used in Typescript generics for example. I've searched opened and closed issues, that's the only one related so far but no longer relevant. There's a nice extension that does that, but that's still requires a hotkey combination and not implemented on the editor level. That could be a really nice feature to wrap the selected text with a single < key press in the same fashion since Typescript is so tightly integrated into vscode. That could be an opt-in feature if it messes with some other user stories I'm not aware of. Or it wasn't implemented by some other decision?

And there's another feature as Expand select that selects within boundaries (same characters again (), [], '', "") but doesn't respect angle brackets boundaries. That would be lovely to select text within angle brackets too.

Using Expand select here, selects within parentheses and braces, ignores angle brackets

[rivy]

Additionally, is there any reason that "always" isn't an option here, or, at least, a default fallback for languages that which aren't defining or supporting it? It's quite jarring to lose bracket/quote surround when moving from one file to another.

[thany]

That could be a really nice feature to wrap the selected text with a single < key press

Disagree. Selected text should always be overwritten by characters from the keyboard. Otherwise it'll be inconsistent. I actually raised a bug report about this and the { character that already does what you want, which is exactly what I don't want.

If this is implemented, it has to be an option that can be switched on or off.

[usernamehw]

Workaround for wrapping:

{
    "key": "shift+.",// should be `>` key
    "command": "editor.action.insertSnippet",
    "args": {
        "snippet": "<${1:${TM_SELECTED_TEXT}}>"
    },
    "when": "editorHasSelection"
},
{
    "key": "shift+,",// should be `<` key
    "command": "editor.action.insertSnippet",
    "args": {
        "snippet": "<${1:${TM_SELECTED_TEXT}}>"
    },
    "when": "editorHasSelection"
},

Expand selection was always kind of trashy in vscode #4795

[Yanpas]

Surrounding with angle brackets works with c++ and java, but not with typescript

[infctr]

@usernamehw wow, thanks, that just works as expected

[alexdima]

Let's track the first part of the issue, where <,> are not surrounding brackets for TypeScript in #38352.

The second part of the issue has been fixed in the meantime and the Expand Selection action now stops at those intermediate nodes.