Arduino Auto Formatting Listings
DESCRIPTION
The default way that the Arduino programming environment handles braces (curly brackets) has annoyed me for years (see the first image).
I much prefer the braces to be separated out onto their own lines (see the second image). I find this much easier to de-bug. I gather it is called 'Allman' style.
When editing your sketches, pressing CTRL+T will re-format the whole program code beautifully, but (by default) to the style which I don't like.
It is easy to adjust the auto formatter's default actions (not only for the braces, but for a vast range of options).
The process is to find the file called 'formatter.conf', copy it to your local preferences file and make a one-line addition.
Find the 'formatter.conf' in the main Arduino installation folder.
Mine was in the folder called C:/Program Files (x86)/Arduino/lib/
Copy the file (CTRL+C) and paste it into your own local preferences folder.
To find this folder, double-click one of your sketches and then go to File>Preferences and you will see a window similar to that shown here.
Paste the 'formatter.conf' file into your own preferences folder (CTRL+V). (It will be alongside your own 'preferences.txt' file).
You may have to close your Arduino environment before making the following change to this file?
If you double-click on your newly copied 'formatter.conf' file, you may have to tell your computer to open it in Notepad or similar.
Finally add the line
--style=allman
into the 'formatter.conf' file. I don't think the position really matters??
I added a comment above it.
(Moving the 'formatter.conf' file into your own preferences folder, means that the change will 'stick' even if you update your Arduino installation).
I believe that a huge range of default options can be changed by adding similar lines.
The guidelines are here: http://astyle.sourceforge.net/astyle.html