typescript.el

typescript.el is a major-mode for editing Typescript-files in GNU Emacs.

typescript.el is a self-contained, lightweight and minimalist major-mode focused on providing basic font-lock/syntax-highlighting and indentation for Typescript syntax, without any external dependencies.

Output from tsc and tslint is also handled seamlessly through compilation-mode.

A short note on development HALT

As the both the JavaScript and TypeScript languages have evolved to become ever more complex, so has the Elisp codebase for typescript-mode trying to correctly handle them.

We've been at the point for quite some time where it has become increasingly obvious that the current code-base simply cannot continue growing. It will be slow. It will be complex. It will be buggy. It will be head-ache inducing to wrap our heads around it, and ... I guess we're already there.

Apart from occasional PRs getting merged, the current typescript-mode code isn't being developed because almost nobody wants to work code of this complexity.

Essentially all major development of typescript-mode has come to a halt.

Good news though!

Emacs 29 will ship with support for a parser-library called tree-sitter, and will actually have in-tree support for TypeScript! So now you can just use the provided typescript-ts-mode and get better support for TypeScript than typescript.el ever provided. This new mode also supports TSX.

Development of TypeScript-support will from now on continue in Emacs core, rather than this repo. We hope you'll like the new experience.

Installation

typescript.el can be installed from source directly using your favourite approach or framework, or from MELPA and MELPA Stable as a package.

To install typescript.el simply type M-x package-install<RET>typescript-mode<RET>.

Customization

To customize typescript.el just type the following: M-x customize-group<RET>typescript<RET>.

You can add any other customization you like to typescript-mode-hook in your init.el file. typescript.el also handles prog-mode-hook on versions of Emacs which supports it.

Support for Compilation Mode

This mode automatically adds support for compilation-mode so that if you run M-x compile<ret>tsc<ret> the error messages are correctly parsed.

However, the error messages produced by tsc when its pretty flag is turned on include ANSI color escapes, which by default compilation-mode does not interpret. In order to get the escapes parsed, you can use:

(require 'ansi-color)
(defun colorize-compilation-buffer ()
  (ansi-color-apply-on-region compilation-filter-start (point-max)))
(add-hook 'compilation-filter-hook 'colorize-compilation-buffer)

Or, if you prefer, you can configure tsc with the pretty flag set to false: tsc --pretty false. However, doing this does more than just turning off the colors. It also causes tsc to produce less elaborate error messages.

Contributing

To run the tests you can run make test.

If you prefer, you may run the tests via the provided Dockerfile.

docker build -t typescript-mode .
docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/typescript-mode typescript-mode

Other Typescript-packages of interest

While typescript.el may not provide a full kitchen-sink, the good news is that there's other packages which do!

More advanced features can be provided by using these additional packages:

• lsp-mode - A standards-based code-completion and refactoring backend, based on the Language Server Protocol (LSP).

• tide - TypeScript Interactive Development Environment for Emacs

• ts-comint - a Typescript REPL in Emacs.

Initializing these with typescript.el will then become a matter of creating your own typescript-mode-hook in your init.el file.