This past week, I dedicated my mornings to a single goal: configuring Visual Studio Code to automatically insert a new line before braces {}.

How it was:

if (true){
  // do something
}

How I wanted it to be:

if (true)
{
  // do something
}

The task proved to be more challenging than I expected. I found many discussions about the same issue in forums and on Stack Overflow, but no definitive solution. So I’m here to share the solution I discovered.

First of all, you will need:

1. C# Extension;
2. omnisharp.json file;
3. Changes applied to settings.json.

# Configuring Omnisharp

You can find the location of your Omnisharp in %USERPROFILE%/.omnisharp/. My Omnisharp is at /home/amanda/.omnisharp/omnisharp.json.

This is my Omnisharp configuration:

{
    "FormattingOptions": {
        "newLine": "\n",
        "useTabs": false,
        "tabSize": 4,
        "indentationSize": 4,

        "NewLinesForBracesInTypes": true,
        "NewLinesForBracesInMethods": true,
        "NewLinesForBracesInProperties": true,
        "NewLinesForBracesInAccessors": true,
        "NewLinesForBracesInAnonymousMethods": true,
        "NewLinesForBracesInControlBlocks": true,
        "NewLinesForBracesInAnonymousTypes": true,
        "NewLinesForBracesInObjectCollectionArrayInitializers": true,
        "NewLinesForBracesInLambdaExpressionBody": true,

        "NewLineForElse": true,
        "NewLineForCatch": true,
        "NewLineForFinally": true,
        "NewLineForMembersInObjectInit": true,
        "NewLineForMembersInAnonymousTypes": true,
        "NewLineForClausesInQuery": true,
    }
}

Configuration taken from this comment.

# Updating VSCode settings

You can find the settings.json file in ~/.config/Code/User. My file is at /home/amanda/.config/Code/User/settings.json.

I added these lines to the settings.json:

    "omnisharp.json": "/home/amanda/.omnisharp",
    "omnisharp.enableEditorConfigSupport": false,
    "omnisharp.useEditorFormattingSettings": true,
    "omnisharp.path": "latest",
    "editor.formatOnType": true,
    "editor.formatOnSave": true,
    "editor.formatOnPaste": true,
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "ms-dotnettools.csharp",
    "[csharp]": {"editor.defaultFormatter": "ms-dotnettools.csharp"}

For these settings to work, you need to have the C# extension installed and enabled, and after all this, restart Omnisharp.

Here is the extension:

Ctrl+Shift+P: Restart Omnisharp

# Everything working BUT

After all these changes, you can start using Visual Studio Code and enjoy having braces inserted on a new line… BUT automatic formatting while typing is not working. To work, you need to use the Format Document option in Visual Studio Code.

I didn’t want to keep using this option every time, so after a lot of searching, I found these settings for the editor:

• editor.formatOnSave
• editor.formatOnPaste
• editor.formatOnType

With these settings, when saving the file and pasting code, the formatting will be done automatically. BUT the option to format while typing formatOnType still doesn’t work. I found a Github issue discussing the problem. The formatOnType does not work for C# because this feature validates the ; (more used in js). They have this fix on the roadmap, but until the fix is released, the formatOnSave will do the job.