Binary Plist

A Visual Studio Code extension that enables editing of binary property list files as XML. It is inspired by the BinaryPlist Sublime Text package, although the experience is not as seamless (the user must agree to opening a binary file and the editing takes place in an additional tab). A virtual file system is used to achieve this using the FileSystemProvider API.

The extension is cross-platform but primarily uses the macOS plutil binary for conversion, the Python plistlib is used as an alternative if available. The node package simple-plist is used as a fallback but due to JavaScript not having a float type real values that are whole numbers will be cast to integer types (a warning dialog is shown first).

Usage

Simply open a binary property list file and after clicking the "Open Anyway" button and choosing the default "Text Editor" editor from the list another tab will open in XML and all changes saved will be reflected in the other tab as binary.

If Visual Studio Code does not recognize the file as a plist file select it as the language mode. File associations can be used to perform this when a file is opened, the following settings code will associate .strings files:

  "files.associations": {
​      "*.strings": "plist"
  }

Tests

Tests can be run with npm test or running Extension Tests in the Visual Studio Code debugger.