This plugin adds the ability to define more than one task (target) in a single sublime-build file.

When you run the Build command, a menu ask you which task you want to execute.

Update variants:

SublimeText 2 Build 2197 introduce a new option "variants" in sublime-build file.

See this link for more info.

Like this plugin, you can now have different tasks that is available on the Command Palette prefixed with "Build: ".

This plugin is designed to be a drop in replacement for the standard exec command (the command that is executed by the Build command in ST2). It means that actual sublime-build files must run exactly the same way as before.

This plugin define a new format for sublime-build file that supports multi target build.

The best way to understand new format is to look at Example: Multi task Python Builder.

In brief:

• cmd become a dictionary that contain one entry for each task.
• The fields that could be declared in each task are exactly the same as the standard fields (cmd, file_regex, working_dir, ...)
• The fields declared in the root are the defaults for all tasks. Same fields declared inside the task as upper priority.
• There is a new optional field default_task that define the default task. The default value is 'build'.

This is the standard Python sublime-build included with ST2:

{
        "cmd": ["python", "-u", "$file"],
        "file_regex": "^[ ]*File \"(...*?)\", line ([0-9]*)",
        "selector": "source.python"
}

Now this is a multi task Python sublime-build:

{
    "cmd": {
            "build": {
                    "cmd": ["python", "-u", "$file"]
            },
            "verbose": {
                    "cmd": ["python", "-u", "-v", "$file"],
                    "quiet": true
            }
    },
    "file_regex": "^[ ]*File \"(...*?)\", line ([0-9]*)",
    "selector": "source.python",
    "default_task": "verbose",
    "target": "multi_task_exec"
}

If you compare these files, this exactly the same structure except:

• To use this plugin you have to set multi_task_exec in the target field.
• cmd field become a dictionary that contain one entry for each task. The fields that could be declared in each task are exactly the same as the standard fields (cmd, file_regex, working_dir, ...).
• The optional field default_task define the default task. The default value is 'build'.
• file_regex is the default for all task. This value is used for each task except for tasks that redeclare file_regex.

There is actually only one things which can cause problems:

Expandable variables (like '$file', '$file_path', ...) are expanded by ST2 before calling the exec command. And not all fields from the sublime-build file are expanded (cmd and working_dir only I think).

So for the variables of tasks to be expanded, I have to put tasks in the cmd fields. The drawback is that all fields from tasks are expanded, so if you put a '$file' string in the path field, the text is replaced by the full path of the current file, which is not the case for standard build file.

In practice, I don't think it's really an issue.