enabledFileTypes "*": false does not function as expected

[kiweezi]

I would like cspell to only check markdown files. So exclude all other file types / languages. But it seems setting "*": false is not supported.

Here's the configuration I am trying:

"cSpell.enabledFileTypes": {
        "markdown": true,
        "*": false
},

Ordering them differently in the list, or excluding the "*" item entirely also does not work.

This means all of the following configurations function the same as each other - they enable all file types to be checked:

"cSpell.enabledFileTypes": {
        "markdown": true,
        "*": false
},
"cSpell.enabledFileTypes": {
        "markdown": true,
        "*": true
},
"cSpell.enabledFileTypes": {
        "markdown": true
},

At the very least, I think this is not user friendly behavior, and is difficult to understand. I would love if this was fixed, so that I can use it as described at the start.

Versions

• Extension: 4.0.21
• VSCode: 1.95.3
• OS: Windows 11 10.0.26100

[Jason3S]

@kiweezi,

Please create a repo that shows it not working. It is not clear from your example what is happening.

Some things to know:

• "*": false will NOT turn off already enabled files. It just means, if a file type has not been explictly enabled, please do not check it by default. By setting "*": false, it will cancel the "*": true in the default settings. See VS Code Settings Precedence on how settings are merged.
• The cSpell.enableFiletypes also impacts the list of enabled file types. Please set them to "cSpell.enableFiletypes": [].

Note: some dictionaries will explicitly enable its file type. For those, you will need to add something like "al": false. Here is a list: search cspell-dicts.

[cbrnr]

I still have the problem that "*": false does not work. My config is:

    "cSpell.enabledFileTypes": {
        "*": false,
        "markdown": true,
        "quarto": true,
        "text": true,
    },

But spellchecking is performed for a Julia source file (.jl):

This setting seems to be very unstable, because I remember it didn't work when it was introduced, then after some update it worked until a few days ago, where it stopped working again.

[Jason3S]

@cbrnr,

There are a few dictionaries that have the legacy setting: enableFiletypes. These dictionaries are automatically turned on. I have created a PR to remove it, but it might be a while before it lands in the spell checker.

Here are the dictionaries: ada, al, astro, dart, elisp, lisp, fsharp, julia, kotlin, r, sql and terraform.

If you add them to your list, it should take care of the issue.

* is just the default setting, it cannot override a file type that was enabled.

[cbrnr]

Thanks @Jason3S, this makes sense now! Just to be sure, you mean until the dictionaries are turned off by default, I need to add "julia": false etc., right?

[kiweezi]

@cbrnr In my case, I had this issue with Terraform.

I just added "terraform": false, to the "enabledFileTypes" block and it worked a charm. Thanks @Jason3S and @cbrnr !

[Jason3S]

Thanks @Jason3S, this makes sense now! Just to be sure, you mean until the dictionaries are turned off by default, I need to add "julia": false etc., right?

Yes, like @kiweezi 's example.