Format Code in Visual Studio Code not working on Mac OS X (El Capitan)

Question

Update:

Not sure what happened to my Visual Studio Code installation, but removing and re-installing the application (via homebrew) fixed the problem. Shift - Option - F once again formats code!

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I'm struggling to format code in Visual Studio Code on MAC OSX El Capitan.

For some reason the default key binding ('Shift + Option + F') does not work. I also no longer have the option to format code via the 'Command + Shift + P', and entering '>format code'. In fact, '>format code' isn't even an option in the list anymore.

This used to work, but I am not sure what changed.

'Shift + Option + F' does do something though, it makes a ' ̰' character appear that results in some weird cursor behaviour (not sure how else to describe it) when moving over characters adjacent to the ' ̰' character.

Additional information:

• I'm creating an Ember.js (v2.3.0) application
• I've tried formatting *.js, *.hbs and *.json files, but it doesn't work in any of these

Answer 1

I came from Windows to Mac as a newbie, expecting the most basic things like code formatting would work with Shift+ALt+F as it does on Windows. But naturally, it didn't. The problem was, Keyboard - Input Source (Default in India - [ABC - India]) doesn't capture Shift+Alt+F, which was evident in the "Command Palette: Developer: Toggle Keyboard Shortcuts Troubleshooting"

Solution:

• System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Input Sources (tab)
• I had ABC - India (defaulted), needed to remove it and added U.S. International - PC

Answer 2

It's happening from time to time in my mac and if I just restart VScode it works again. Give it a try before reinstalling it the next time