Vue.js
WebStorm integrates with the Vue.js framework intended for developing user interfaces and advanced single-page applications.
Creating a new Vue.js application
The recommended way to create a new Vue.js app is to use vue-cli, which is an official tool for scaffolding Vue.js applications. If you create your application with Vue CLI version 2, you can select one of 6 default project templates and then answer some questions about additional tools like linters and test runner to use in your development.
Of course, you can also create an empty WebStorm project and install Vue.js in it.
To install the vue-cli package
Open the built-in Terminal ( ) and type
npm install --global vue-cli
at the command prompt.
To create an application
Choose Create New Project on the Welcome screen. The Create New Project Dialog opens.
on the main menu or clickIn the left-hand pane, choose Vue.js.
- In the right-hand pane:
Specify the path to the folder where the project-related files will be stored.
In the Node Interpreter field, specify the Node.js interpreter to use. Choose a configured interpreter from the list or choose Add to configure a new one
In the vue-cli or @vue/cli field, specify the folder where the
vue-cli
or the@vue/cli
package is stored.From the Project template list, choose the Vue.js template to use.
When you click Create, WebStorm asks you some additional questions about tools, like linters and the test runner, that can be added to the project. These questions vary depending on the template you've selected. After that, WebStorm generates a Vue.js-specific project with all the required configuration files.
To download the project dependencies, do one of the following:
Open the embedded Terminal (Alt+F12) and type
npm install
at the command prompt.Choose Run 'npm install' on the context menu of the
package.json
file in your project root.
To create an empty WebStorm project
Choose Create New Project on the Welcome screen. The Create New Project Dialog opens.
on the main menu or clickIn the left-hand pane, choose Empty Project.
Specify the path to the folder where the project-related files will be stored.
When you click Create, WebStorm creates and opens an empty project.
To install Vue.js in an empty project
Open the empty project where you will use Vue.js.
Open the embedded Terminal (Alt+F12) and type
npm install vue
at the command prompt.
Starting with an existing Vue.js application
To continue developing an existing Vue.js application, open it in WebStorm and download the required dependencies.
To open the application sources that are already on your machine
Click Open on the Welcome screen or choose on the main menu. In the dialog that opens, select the folder where your sources are stored.
To check out the application sources from your version control
Click Check out from Version Control on the Welcome screen or choose on the main menu.
Select your version control system from the list.
In the VCS-specific dialog that opens, type your credentials and the repository to check out the application sources from.
To download the dependencies
Click Run 'npm install' in the pop-up window:
Creating Vue.js components
WebStorm recognizes the .vue
file type and provides a dedicated .vue
file template for Vue.js components.
To create a Vue.js component
In the Project tool window, select the parent folder for the new component and choose Vue Component from the list.
You can also extract a new Vue.js component from an existing one without any copying and pasting but using a dedicated intention action or refactoring. All the data and methods used in the newly extracted template stay in the parent component. WebStorm passes them to the new component with props and copies the related styles.
To extract a component
- Select the template fragment to extract and invoke component extraction:
To use the intention action, press Alt+Enter, and then choose Extract Vue Component from the list.
To use the refactoring, choose
on the main menu or on the context menu of the selection.
Type the name of the new component. If this name is already used or invalid, WebStorm shows a warning. Otherwise a new single-file component is created and imported into the parent component.
Coding assistance
In .vue
files, WebStorm recognizes script
, style
, and template
blocks. Inside the script
and style
tags, WebStorm lets you use TypeScript, Pug, and CSS preprocessors instead of the lang
attribute.
By default, you get code completion for ECMAScript 6 inside script
blocks and for CSS inside style
blocks.
In templates, WebStorm automatically adds closing curly braces (}
) and completes Vue.js directives.
WebStorm also provides code completion (Ctrl+Space) and navigation (Ctrl+B) for Vue components inside the template
tag:
Code completion and navigation to the definition is also available for Vue.js properties, properties in the data object, computed properties, and methods.
Generating code with Vue.js Live templates
With WebStorm, you can use a collection of Live templates for Vue.js adapted from the collection created by Sarah Drasner.
To use a Vue.js Live template
Type the template's abbreviation or press Ctrl+J and select it from the list of available templates.
To expand the template, press Tab.
To move from one variable to another inside the template, press Tab again.
Reformatting Vue.js code with Prettier
Prettier is a tool to format .js
, .ts
, .css
, .less
, .scss
, .vue
, and .json
code. With WebStorm, you can format selected code fragments as well as entire files or directories using the Reformat with Prettier action. WebStorm adds this action as soon as you install Prettier as a dependency in your project or globally on your computer.
To reformat code with Prettier
Select the code fragment to reformat in the editor or select a file or a folder in the Project tool window and press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+P or choose Reformat with Prettier on the context menu of the selection.
Alternatively, press Ctrl+Shift+A and click Reformat with Prettier in the Find Action list.
WebStorm can apply the key code style rules from the Prettier's configuration to the WebStorm Code Style settings so that generated code (e.g. after refactoring or quick-fix) and the code that is already processed with Prettier are formatted consistently.
To apply Prettier code style rules
In the project where Prettier is enabled, open package.json and click Yes in the pane at the top of the tab.