Word Count
A local fork of Microsoft's ms-vscode.wordcount sample
extension. Like the original, it puts a live word count in the status bar. It adds:
- Selection word count, live. Select text and the status bar shows how many words are in the
selection out of the whole document, updating as you drag, extend with Shift, or type. Multi-cursor
selections are added up.
- A character counter you can turn on and off. Click the status bar item, or run
Word Count: Toggle Character Count from the Command Palette. The choice is saved in the
wordcount.showCharacterCount setting.
- A choice of counting rules.
wordcount.countMode switches between Markdown-aware counting (the
default), the rules online word counters use, and plain whitespace splitting, so the number you see
matches the one a submission form or website will check.
What the status bar shows
| State |
Character counter off |
Character counter on |
| No selection |
340 Words |
340 Words, 1,920 Chars |
| Text selected |
12 of 340 Words |
12 of 340 Words, 58 of 1,920 Chars |
Hover over the item for detail: the number of selected ranges, and, when the character counter is on, the
character count without whitespace.
Settings
| Setting |
Default |
Meaning |
wordcount.showCharacterCount |
false |
Show the character count. The toggle command flips this. |
wordcount.languages |
["markdown"] |
Language IDs the count is shown for, e.g. ["markdown", "latex", "plaintext"]. Use ["*"] for every file. |
wordcount.countMode |
"markdown" |
How words are counted: "markdown", "online" or "whitespace". See below. |
If wordcount.showCharacterCount is set in the workspace's .vscode/settings.json, the toggle changes it
there. Otherwise it changes your user settings.
How things are counted
Words follow the rules of wordcount.countMode:
| Mode |
A word is |
## Hi © [docs](https://x.io) - ok |
markdown (default) |
A run of non-whitespace text with at least one letter or digit, so Markdown markers such as #, -, > and --- are not counted. |
3 |
online |
As markdown, but symbols such as ©, ™ and emoji count as words, and a URL is a word of its own, so a link [label](https://…) counts as two words. Use it to match online word counters that you paste the raw text into. |
5 |
whitespace |
Any run of non-whitespace characters, # and - included. The original ms-vscode.wordcount and wc -w count this way. |
6 |
Chinese and Japanese text has no spaces between words, so in markdown and online modes each Han,
Hiragana or Katakana character counts as one word, as in Microsoft Word. In whitespace mode a run of
them with no spaces counts as one word.
Characters are what a reader sees as one character: an emoji with a skin tone or an accented letter
counts once. A line break counts once, whether the file uses LF or CRLF line endings. The counting mode
does not change the character count.
Build, test, install
npm install
npm test # compile, then run the unit and extension tests with node --test
npm run package # builds word-count-<version>.vsix
code --install-extension word-count-0.3.0.vsix
The original ms-vscode.wordcount also adds a word count to the status bar. Disable or uninstall it so
the two items don't sit side by side.
License
MIT; see the LICENSE file. Based on ms-vscode.wordcount 0.1.0, © Microsoft Corporation.
