Integration with Visual Studio Code

In order to invoke boxes from Visual Studio Code, we need a Visual Studio Code plugin that can invoke filter programs. Several of those exist. For this example, we use Filter Text by yhirose. It hasn’t been updated for a while, but worked fine for us.

Install the Filter Text extension into your Visual Studio Code.

In your settings.json, add the following configuration:

"filterText.commandList": [
    {
        "name": "Boxes Peek (create)",
        "description": "Add a 'peek' box around selected text",
        "command": "boxes -d peek -p h1 -s 118 -i none -n UTF-8"
    },
    {
        "name": "Boxes Peek (mend)",
        "description": "Repair a 'peek' box",
        "command": "boxes -d peek -p h1 -s 118 -i none -n UTF-8 -m"
    }
]

This snippet defines two invocations of boxes, one for adding a new box, and one for repairing it. The options passed to boxes do this:

Option	Meaning
`-d peek`	Choose the `peek` box design.
`-p h1`	Add a space to the left and right of the text. Looks better.
`-s 118`	Always make the box 118 characters wide. The boxes look better when all are the same width.
`-i none`	Do not indent box or text, always start at the left side.
`-n UTF-8`	Tell boxes that the input is UTF-8 encoded text. Adjust if you use a different encoding.
`-m`	Mend box. Tells boxes that we want a repair instead of a new box.

You can add more commands to the JSON to add different boxes, or add a command for removing a box. By using workspace-specific settings.json files, you can even share those commands in your team, and configure different boxes for different projects.

Define a key binding. Press Ctrl+Shift+P or ⇧⌘P (on Mac) to bring up the command palette, then choose Preferences: Open Keyboard Shortcuts (JSON). Add the following JSON:
```
[
    {
        "key": "ctrl+shift+b",
        "command": "-workbench.action.tasks.build"
    },
    {
        "key": "ctrl+shift+b",
        "command": "extension.filterPredefined"
    }
]
```
In my case, Ctrl+Shift+B was already defined for a build action, so the first entry removes it. Choose any key that suits you.