What is Sublime Alignment & why do you want it?

According to its website:

Dead-simple alignment of multi-line selections and multiple selections for Sublime Text 2.

What's that mean? Start with this CSS:

.test {
  font-family: Georgia, serif;
  font-size: 16px;
  font-style: normal;
}

Run this through Sublime Alignment, & you end up with this:

.test {
  font-family : Georgia, serif;
  font-size   : 16px;
  font-style  : normal;
}

Nice & readable & clean.

Another example, this one in a configuration file. Instead of : as the field delimiter, this file uses the good ol' fashioned =:

short_open_tag = Off
asp_tags = Off
precision = 14
y2k_compliance = On

After Sublime Alignment, we have this:

short_open_tag = Off
asp_tags       = Off
precision      = 14
y2k_compliance = On

Of course, one crazy long directive can put everything off:

short_open_tag                = Off
asp_tags                      = Off
precision                     = 14
y2k_compliance                = On
zlib.output_compression_level = -1

Fortunately, Sublime Alignment let's you choose which lines to line up & which to skip, giving us this far more sane result:

short_open_tag = Off
asp_tags       = Off
precision      = 14
y2k_compliance = On
zlib.output_compression_level = -1

Cool? Let's dig in!

Install the Sublime Alignment package in Sublime Text

Follow these steps:

1. Command-Shift-P to open Command Palette.
2. Type Install until you see Package Control: Install Package.
3. When the list of packages appears, type Alignment until you find it.
4. Press Enter to install Sublime Alignment.

Configuring Sublime Alignment

Follow these steps:

1. Open the preferences file for Sublime Alignment:

   • Windows: Preferences > Package Settings > Alignment > Settings - User
   • Linux: Preferences > Package Settings > Alignment > Settings - User
   • Mac OS X: Sublime Text 2 > Preferences > Package Settings > Alignment > Settings - User

2. The file should be empty. Put the following in it:

   {
       // The mid-line characters to align in a multi-line selection, changing
       // this to an empty array will disable mid-line alignment
       "alignment_chars": [
           "=", ":"
       ]
   }
   

3. Save & close the preference file. By default, Sublime Alignment works with =. Now it works with = and with :.

Using Sublime Alignment

Simple:

1. Select the lines you wish to align.
2. Press Ctrl+Alt+A (Windows & Linux) or Command+Ctrl+A (Mac OS X)