I am writing a Visual Studio extension which provides intelliSense for a certain content type.
The problem that I am facing now is the effect of "Auto Indent" that Visual Studio provides on empty lines when user types a character.
Here a completion session started on an empty line (over virtual spaces):
Notice the tab symbols on the other lines and no tab on the line with caret on it.
Now when use starts typing, VS automatically and correctly adds necessary tab characters to the line:
Now the problem is those Added tabs apparently become part of the user input and as a result CurrentSession.SelectedCompletionSet.SelectBestMatch() or Filter() method cannot find the current item which starts with "C" here (thinking user has typed \t\tC instead).
If I start the session on anywhere else which does not require auto indent everything works fine.
Any idea?
Edit (more information): I used a code flow very similar to:
Ook here
vsLua here
vsClojure here
In Lua and Clojure you wouldn't face this problem because they never provide intelliSense on virtual spaces (meaning they always start after a certain set of characters) and if you start after a character virtual spaces are already turned into real spaces.
Ook on the other had has the same problem.
Revised Answer:
Ah, I see. I interpreted your question thinking that you were referring to completion triggering via typing, not from the explicit command. If you enable "show whitespace" for the C# editor, you can see what we do here: when you trigger the "show completion" command, we explicitly realize the whitespace so you're no longer floating around in virtual space. You should probably do this as well. (Alternatively, you could detect the scenario and fix it up on the first typing by adjusting your ApplicableTo span, but that's probably not worth the trouble.)
You can get the whitespace that should be inserted from IEditorOperations. So MEF import an IEditorOperationsFactoryService, and then do:
var editorOperations = editorOperationsFactoryService.GetEditorOperations(textView);
var whitespace = editorOperations.GetWhitespaceForVirtualSpace(textView.Caret.Position.VirtualBufferPosition);
if (whitespace.Length != 0)
{
textView.TextBuffer.Insert(textView.Caret.Position.BufferPosition, whitespace);
}
(Funny aside: as I answered this, I was curious to see how we handled this in the Roslyn C# and VB editors. The answer was "not", but filtering still worked by pure luck later in the code.)
Original Answer:
I suspect by your description of the problem that you are implementing your completion like this: you know a character is about to be typed (either via a keyboard filter or IOleCommandTarget) and you trigger an ICompletionSession, where the tracking span is an empty span on the current caret position.
The best approach to fixing this is to not trigger the session before the key is pressed and goes into the editor, but rather after it. This is what we do in the Roslyn implementation for C# and VB completion. Then, when you are in your AugmentCompletionSession call and creating your CompletionSet, compute the "applicable to" span which consists of the non-whitespace characters around your caret. The easiest way to compute this might just be to call GetWordExtent from the text structure navigator.
This allows for other scenarios to work right. Consider scenarios where the user types C, presses escape, and then continues to type your identifier. If you want to trigger completion again, you'd have to do the math to ensure that the "C" is counted as part of your span anyways.
Is there a way to make Intellisense(CTRL+Space) automatically open after I type a letter? Its really annoying me to have to press CTRL+Space every line of code
What you describe is the default behavior. To restore it, use:
Tools -> Options -> Text Editor -> C# (e.g.)
Statement Completion -> Auto list members: Checked
Edit:
In C++ "Auto list members" does not apply to the first identifier in an expression, that is, when the identifier could be almost anything: a global variable, a keyword, a class member, etc. It does however apply (and does work) after the ".", "->", and "::" operators.
A workaround for a very common case of desiring auto listing for class members is to use the "this->" convention in your code, which some coding standards recommend anyway. The completion list will pop up immediately upon typing "->".
Default C++ IntelliSense does not open automatically when you are typing except for after ., -> and ::. The third party commercial extension Visual Assist X does provide that behavior though.
Every once in a while I'll do something that causes strang behavior when pressing certain keys.
1)The single quote key (') will not type a character unless I press it twice, in which case it will print two backwards single quote characters (``).
2)The ` (backwards single quote?) key types a # character.
3)The angle bracket keys (< and >) type a single quote (') and a period (.).
4)Shift + any A-Z character types the character and brings the code completion window up.
I'm sure there's other symptomps, and they only want I've found to stop it is to restart Visual studio. This behavior does not appear in any other apps. Anybody experience this?
I started getting this on my computer (not in Visual Studio, but everywhere else). I had default input language set to "English(New Zealand) - United States-International", whatever that is supposed to mean. Changed it to English-US. Disabled the "Language Bar"
"Control Panel >> Regional Settings >> Languages, click on Advanced, look at Installed Services. See if you have multiple choices - if you have an "International" option, remove it and I believe the problem will go away. It did for me.
AFAIK, this happened when I installed XP-SP3.
You probably have an alternate input language set up (try typing ` a when this happens and you'll get à). I think the default hotkey to switch between input languages is Ctrl+Shift, so you're probably hitting it by accident occasionally. Use the language settings control panel to turn off the hotkey or remove the unwanted keyboard configuration.
I have a laptop/keyboard which can be used for French-Canadian. Alternative key-meanings are printed on some keys (in green) ... and they match the keys you mentioned, i.e.:
alt of ' is ``
alt of ` is #
alt of < and > are ' and .
I have an edition of Vista installed that knows about French-Canadian. On the right-hand end of the O/S Taskbar, near the clock, there's a keyboard icon. It's usually set to "US but if I set it to "Canadian French" then I get the key mappings you describe.
Something similar (i.e. changing the language-specific interpretation of the keyboard) must be happening on your machine too. You say it's in Visual Studio, but for me I find it in my O/S.
If you have multiple languages on your machine, then you probably triggered this behavior by pressing ctrl+shift, which causes windows to switch the system language for the active window.
You can either press it again, or better yet, disable the language bar and all other secondary languages.
Like others have said, you can press ctrl-shift to "loop" through the settings.
Locked. This question and its answers are locked because the question is off-topic but has historical significance. It is not currently accepting new answers or interactions.
Visual Studio is such a massively big product that even after years of working with it I sometimes stumble upon a new/better way to do things or things I didn't even know were possible.
For instance-
Crtl + R, Ctrl + W to show white spaces. Essential for editing Python build scripts.
Under "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\Text Editor"
Create a String called Guides with the value "RGB(255,0,0), 80" to have a red line at column 80 in the text editor.
What other hidden features have you stumbled upon?
Make a selection with ALT pressed - selects a square of text instead of whole lines.
Tracepoints!
Put a breakpoint on a line of code. Bring up the Breakpoints Window and right click on the new breakpoint. Select 'When Hit...'. By ticking the 'Print a message' check box Visual Studio will print out a message to the Debug Output every time the line of code is executed, rather than (or as well as) breaking on it. You can also get it to execute a macro as it passes the line.
You can drag code to the ToolBox. Try it!
Click an identifier (class name, variable, etc) then hit F12 for "Go To Definition". I'm always amazed how many people I watch code use the slower right-click -> "Go To Definition" method.
EDIT: Then you can use Ctrl+- to jump back to where you were.
CTRL+SHIFT+V will cycle through your clipboard, Visual Studio keeps a history of copies.
Sara Ford covers lots of lovely tips: http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford/archive/tags/Visual+Studio+2008+Tip+of+the+Day/default.aspx
But some of my favourites are Code Snippets, Ctrl + . to add a using <Namespace> or generate a method stub.
I can't live without that.
Check out a great list in the Visual Studio 2008 C# Keybinding poster: http://www.microsoft.com/downloadS/details.aspx?familyid=E5F902A8-5BB5-4CC6-907E-472809749973&displaylang=en
CTRL-K, CTRL-D
Reformat Document!
This is under the VB keybindings, not sure about C#
How many times do you debug an array in a quickwatch or a watch window and only have visual studio show you the first element? Add ",N" to the end of the definition to make studio show you the next N items as well. IE "this->m_myArray" becomes "this->m_array,5".
Incremental search: While having a source document open hit (CTRL + I) and type the word you are searching for you can hit (CTRL + I) again to see words matching your input.
You can use the following codes in the watch window.
#err - display last error
#err,hr - display last error as an HRESULT
#exception - display current exception
Ctrl-K, Ctrl-C to comment a block of text with // at the start
Ctrl-K, Ctrl-U to uncomment a block of text with // at the start
Can't live without it! :)
Stopping the debugger from stepping into trivial functions.
When you’re stepping through code in the debugger, you can spend a lot of time stepping in and out of functions you’re not particularly interested in, with names such as GetID(), or std::vector<>(), to pick a C++ example. You can use the registry to make the debugger ignore these.
For Visual Studio 2005, you have to go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio \8.0\NativeDE\StepOver and add string values containing regular expressions for each function or set of functions you wish to exclude; e.g.
std::vector.*::.*
TextBox::GetID
You can also override these for individual exceptions. For instance, suppose you did want to step into the vector class’s destructor:
std::vector.*::\~.*=StepInto
You can find details for other versions of Visual Studio at http://blogs.msdn.com/andypennell/archive/2004/02/06/69004.aspx
Ctrl-F10: run to cursor during debugging. Took me ages to find this, and I use it all the time;
Ctrl-E, Ctrl-D: apply standard formatting (which you can define).
TAB key feature.
If you know snippet key name, write and click double Tab. for example:
Write
foreach
and then click tab key twice to
foreach (object var in collection_to_loop)
{
}
2. If you write any event, write here
Button btn = new Button();
btn.Click +=
and then click tab key twice to
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Button btn = new Button();
btn.Click += new EventHandler(btn_Click);
}
void btn_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
throw new Exception("The method or operation is not implemented.");
}
btn_Click function write automatically
in XAML Editor, Write any event. for example:
MouseLeftButtonDown then click tab
MouseLeftButtonDown="" then click tab again
MouseLeftButtonDown="Button_MouseLeftButtonDown" in the code section Button_MouseLeftButtonDown method created.
Sara Ford has this market cornered.
http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford/default.aspx
More Visual Studio tips and tricks than you can shake a stick at.
Some others:
The Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 3-month trial editions are fully-functional, and can be used indefinitely (forever) by setting the system clock back prior to opening VS. Then, when VS is opened, set the system clock forward again so your datetimes aren't screwed up.
But that's really piracy and I can't recommend it, especially when anybody with a .edu address can get a fully-functional Pro version of VS2008 through Microsoft Dreamspark.
You can use Visual Studio to open 3rd-party executables, and browse embedded resources (dialogs, string tables, images, etc) stored within.
Debugging visualizers are not exactly a "hidden" feature but they are somewhat neglected, and super-useful, since in addition to using the provided visualizers you can roll your own for specific data sets.
Debugger's "Set Instruction Pointer" or "Set Next Statement" command.
Conditional breakpoints (as KiwiBastard noted).
You can use Quickwatch etc. to evaluate not only the value of a variable, but runtime expressions around that variable.
T4 (Text Template Transformation Toolkit). T4 is a code generator built right into Visual Studio
Custom IntelliSense dropdown height, for example displaying 50 items instead of the default which is IMO ridiculously small (8).
(To do that, just resize the dropdown next time you see it, and Visual Studio will remember the size you selected next time it opens a dropdown.)
Discovered today:
Ctrl + .
Brings up the context menu for refactoring (then one that's accessible via the underlined last letter of a class/method/property you've just renamed - mouse over for menu or "Ctrl" + ".")
A lot of people don't know or use the debugger to it's fullest - I.E. just use it to stop code, but right click on the red circle and there are a lot more options such as break on condition, run code on break.
Also you can change variable values at runtime using the debugger which is a great feature - saves rerunning code to fix a silly logic error etc.
Line transpose, Shift-Alt-T
Swaps two line (current and next) and moves cursor to the next line. I'm lovin it. I've even written a macro which changed again position by one line, executed line transpose and changed line position again so it all looking like I swapping current line with previous (Reverse line transpose).
Word transpose, Shift-Ctrl-T
When developing C++, Ctrl-F7 compiles the current file only.
Document Outline in the FormsDesigner (CTRL + ALT + T)
Fast control renaming, ordering and more!
To auto-sync current file with Solution Explorer. So don't have to look where the file lives in the project structure
Tools -> Options -> Projects and Solutions -> "Track Active Item in Solution Explorer"
Edit: If this gets too annoying for you then you can use Dan Vanderboom's macro to invoke this feature on demand through a keystroke.
(Note: Taken from the comment below by Jerry).
I'm not sure if it's "hidden", but not many people know about it -- pseudoregisters. Comes very handy when debugging, I've #ERR, hr in my watch window all the time.
Ctrl-Minus, Ctrl-Plus, navigates back and forward where you've been recently (only open files, though).
I don't use it often, but I do love:
ctrl-alt + mouse select
To select in a rectangular block, to 'block' boundaries.
As noted in comments,
alt + mouse select
Does just a plain rectangular block.
Here's something I learned (for C#):
You can move the cursor to the opening curly brace from the closing curly brace by pressing Control + ].
I learned this on an SO topic that's a dupe of this one:
“Hidden Secrets” of the Visual Studio .NET debugger?
CTRL + Shift + U -> Uppercase highlighted section.
CTRL + U -> Lowercase the highlighted section
Great for getting my SQL Statements looking just right when putting them into string queries.
Also useful for code you've found online where EVERYTHING IS IN CAPS.
Middle Mouse Button Click on the editor tab closes the tab.
To display any chunk of data as an n-byte "array", use the following syntax in Visual Studio's QuickWatch window:
variable, n
For example, to view a variable named foo as a 256-byte array, enter the following expression in the QuickWatch window:
foo, 256
This is particularly useful when viewing strings that aren't null-terminated or data that's only accessible via a pointer. You can use Visual Studio's Memory window to achieve a similar result, but using the QuickWatch window is often more convenient for a quick check.