Visual Studio tips, tricks, and traps

by Roger PenceASNA Education Director

Visual Studio tips, tricks, and Visual Studio tips, tricks, and trapstraps

Visual Studio is a rich and deep product. Here are a few VS 2005 shortcuts and interesting things that make your work easier.

Using bookmarks effectivelyUsing bookmarks effectively

• Bookmarks are a way to mark parts of your code—for the purpose of making it easy to get back to that position in the code

• Bookmarks are, at first blush, not worth the work

• However, by poking around in Visual Studio just a little, you’ll quickly see how once you learn how to use bookmarks, at least for large projects, you’ll never do without them!

BookmarksBookmarks

• Code

Use Edit>Bookmarks>Toggle Bookmark to toggle a bookmark, or Ctrl/B + T

Bookmarks are identified as a small blue rectangle in the left margin. Bookmarks ride with the line with which they are associated.

The Bookmark menu

View>Other Windows>Bookmark Window

Rename the bookmarks and put them in a folder

The Bookmark window

Press F2 to rename a bookmark

Group bookmarks in folders that are named for the files in which the bookmarks reside

Visual Studio mysteryVisual Studio mystery

• Where is the SLN file for my Web project?

A new Web site is created. However, there is no solution file, the SLN file, in its folder.Why?

f:\_code\web\PaloozaTest1

The location of the original SLN fileThe location of the original SLN file

• Use Tools>Options>Projects and Solutions…

C:\Documents and Settings\roger\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects

The location of the original SLN file is governed by the Projects and Solutions “projects locations” setting

Gotcha!Gotcha!

• The enigmatic SLN file!

Why am I saying “original” SLN file?Why am I saying “original” SLN file?

• The SLN file isn’t really important• If you delete, you can still open a Web site project

by simply using File > Open Web Site and selecting the root folder of the Web site you want to open

• If you delete the original SLN, or if you move the project, it looses its link with the original SLN file

• For most Web site projects, I don’t pay much attention to the SLN file

Creating a new SLN fileCreating a new SLN file

If you open a Web site that has lost its link with its SLN file (or if the SLN file has been deleted), it gets created for you—after you tell Visual Studio where to put it.

Visual Studio mysteryVisual Studio mystery

• What causes this?!

The number is parentheses seems to come from nowhere sometimes. What gives?

Duplicate project names?Duplicate project names?

• If you create two projects with exactly the same name, in different folders (would have to be, right)…

• Visual Studio tries to create a folder and a file for that project in your default projects location

• Because it can’t create two folders with the same name.

The mystery solvedThe mystery solved

• For example, I created a PaloozaWeb1 project in one folder, and then another PaloozaWeb1 project in another

• Here’s what is in the default projects folder• The (2) was added to the second to

differentiate it

Do you hate a messy Start Page?Do you hate a messy Start Page?Yu

Keep your MRU list clearKeep your MRU list clear

• MRU entries are written to the registry and there isn’t an easy to clear them

• I wrotethis programto clearthe MRU

Program available with Palooza downloads

Favorite keystrokesFavorite keystrokes

• Use the clipboard ring – Ctrl/Shift/V – cycles through the contents of the

clipboard• Incremental search– “Modeless” quick searches– Ctrl/I

• Find in files to find something in your project– Ctrl/Shift/F

Favorite keystrokesFavorite keystrokes

• Visual Studio 2003 made very effective use of Ctrl/Tab and Ctrl/Shift/Tab to move to the next or previous document window

• In Visual Studio 2005, they replaced that great feature with this boneheaded dialog:

You might like this. I hate it! All I want is a quick way to navigate back and forth through next and previous windows.

Ctrl/Tab: Stickin’ it to the man!Ctrl/Tab: Stickin’ it to the man!

• Keyboard remapping to the rescue• Use Tools>Options>Environment>Keyboard to

remove the keyboard bindings for Window.NextDocumentWindowNav and Window.PreviousDocumentWindowNav

• Then, assign Ctrl/Tab to Window.NextDocumentWindow and Ctrl/Shift/Tab to Window.PreviousDocumentWindow

• Now, all is right with the world

Go full screenGo full screen

• Use Shift/Alt/Enter to toggle between normal view and full screen view.

• Full screen view maximizes your editing window

Shift/Alt/Enter takes you from this

To this (back back again). Full screen mode gives you a chance to see all your code, but quickly restore the windows you were using.Thanks to Dean Bathke!

Favorite keystokesFavorite keystokes

• Move to matching token– Moves to matching brace or paren– Or, to matching BegSr/EndSr, Do/Endo, et al– Ctrl/]

• Go to definition– OK, this isn’t a keystroke, it’s a mousestroke!– Put the cursor on a variable or method name,

right-click it, and select “Go to defintion”– Takes you to the member definition

Editor goodiesEditor goodies

• Did you know that URLs are hot in your code?– Embed links to your help or to source documents – Enabled by default, but “Enable single-click URL

navigation in” Text Editor options

Make sure this is checked to enable hot URLs.

Editor goodiesEditor goodies

• Turn line numbering on– Check “Line numbers” in Text Editor options– Shows line numbers in the left margin

Make sure this is checked to see line numbers

It’s nice to see line numbers, but it’s typically pointless. The reason you want line numbers visible is that when they are visible the “line selector” area for the mouse is substantially wider.

Use Sara Ford’s trick for adding vertical indention rules to the Visual Studio editor. These rules are great for beginners learning how to indent their code.My preference is to use a very light gray rule. You can just barely see them in this shot.

Get the registry hack here:http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford/archive/2004/11/15/257953.aspx

Here is the same screen shot with the rules made a little more obvious so that you can see them.

Use the Libretto’s code snippets to Use the Libretto’s code snippets to reduce the code you need to writereduce the code you need to write

• The Libretto is a Web app that offers AVR-specific snippet templates– http://developer.asna.com/libretto– It’s always up, it works, and it’s free!

34http://developer.asna.com/libretto

Most Libretto templates have promted replaceable tokens. After you provide their values, click “Replace” or press Enter and the code shown on the left is on your clipboard.

Did you ever forget where a project is?Did you ever forget where a project is?

• First, shame on you! • But, just right-click a file’s tab and select “open

containing folder”• An Windows explorer Window will be opened

over the folder where that file is• Note that you can also copy the file’s fully

qualified name to clipboard with this right-click as well.

QuickiesQuickies

• Use the Build toolbar (right-click on the menu and show the Build toolbar) for 1-click builds

• Use two monitors—delivers exponential boost to your productivity

• Use SUBST to map drives—an old DOS trick lives!

• Investigate the macros that come with VS• Use Vault! You’re crazy if you don’t.

Helpful linksHelpful links

• Sara Ford’s blog—great VS tips– http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford/

• Microsoft Visual Studio guided tour– http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/tour/

vs2005_guided_tour/default.htm• Microsoft Visual tips and tips

– http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb245788(vs.80).aspx• Free Visual Studio Book (PDF)

– http://www.infoq.com/minibooks/vsnettt• Zoomit – great screen magnification tool

– http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/zoomit.mspx

Visual Studio tips, tricks, and traps

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