The Sublime Elm Language Package

Installation

1. Install Package Control
2. Run Package Control: Install Package in the Command Palette (Super+Shift+P)
3. Install Elm or use NPM (npm i -g elm)

Features

• Compatible with Sublime Text 2 and Sublime Text 3
• Syntax highlighting
• Snippets for common Elm syntax (function, case … of, let … in, etc.)
• Autocompletions plus type signature and documentation display for all functions inside packages in your elm-package.json file (requires elm-oracle, which you can install with npm install -g elm-oracle)
  1. Bring up the type panel with alt+up or through the right-click context menu
  2. Close the type panel with alt+down
  3. If you don't like these keybindings, rebind them in your User packages directory
• Four standard build commands (Super+[Shift]+B or Super+[Shift]+F7)
  1. Build just checks errors. Kudos to this tweet!
  2. Run additionally outputs your compiled program to an inferred path.
  3. The same as the above two, but ignoring warnings
  4. Output path is configurable in elm-package.json or Elm Build System: … in the Command Palette. Elm build system only requires a valid config in any ancestor directory of the active file.
• Compile messages
  1. Navigate errors and warnings (Super+[Shift]+F4).
  2. Formatted for build output panel.
  3. Compile message highlighting, embedded code highlighting, and color scheme for output panel.
• Integration with popular plugins (installed separately)
  1. SublimeREPL — Run elm-repl in an editor tab with syntax highlighting.
  2. Highlight Build Errors — Does what it says on the box … usually.
• Integration with elm format
  1. Make sure elm-format is in your PATH
  2. Run the "Elm Language Support: Run elm-format" command from the Command Palette to run elm-format on the current file
  3. To enable automatic formatting on every save, Go to Preferences -> Package Settings -> Elm Language Support -> User and add this setting: "elm_format_on_save": true
  4. If there are certain Elm source files you don't want to automatically run elm-format on, for example elm-css based files, you can set a regex filter which will search the full filename (including the path to the file). If the regex matches, then it will not automatically run elm-format on the file when you save. For example, the following filter would prevent automatic elm-format on a file named elm-css/src/Css/TopBar.elm: "elm_format_filename_filter": "elm-css/src/Css/.*\\.elm$"

Troubleshooting

• I have elm-oracle installed, but completions, type signature display, and the type panel don't work
  1. Make sure elm-oracle is on your PATH, or
  2. Add the absolute path of the directory containing elm-oracle to the elm_paths setting in your Elm Language Support User settings
• I have elm-format installed, but it's not working
  1. Make sure elm-format is on your PATH, or
  2. If using an alternate name for the binary (elm-format-0.17 or elm-format-0.18) add it to the elm_format_binary setting in your Elm Language Support User settings; an example might be "elm_format_binary": "elm-format-0.18",, or
  3. Add the absolute path of the directory containing elm-format to the elm_paths setting in your Elm Language Support User settings. Note that you can combine paths with the above, so an example might be "elm_paths": "/users/alex/elm-format:/users/alex/elm-oracle"
• Elm format automatically runs every time I save a file, but there are some files I don't want it to run on
  1. If there are certain Elm source files you don't want to automatically run elm-format on, for example elm-css based files, you can set a regex filter which will search the full filename (including the path to the file). If the regex matches, then it will not automatically run elm-format on the file when you save. For example, the following filter would prevent automatic elm-format on a file named elm-css/src/Css/TopBar.elm: "elm_format_filename_filter": "elm-css/src/Css/.*\\.elm$"
• The Tools menu item is blank or the Elm menu item is greyed out and I cannot select it
  1. Install the SublimeREPL package. The 'Elm' item will appear in the Tools > SublimeREPL submenu.

Learning

Don't know Elm? Great first step!

• Elm Website
• elm-discuss group
• Pragmatic Studio: Building Web Apps with Elm
• Elm Town Podcast