I always keep two instances of Visual Studio open. Occasionally the positions of the two instances get swapped on the task bar. I guess it is a bug, which has not fixed by Visual Studio team yet. Is there something that I can do in order to prevent that? This is really important to me as I need my old project on the left had side and the new project on the right hand side as I used to. I mainly code using C#, AngularJS and Java Script
VS version - 'Professional 2015'
OS Version – 'Windows 10 Pro'
My guess is that the IDE window becomes unresponsive during some heavy operation (loading project?) and stops getting counted as a window (it gets replaced by a ghost window created by Windows) and when the real window starts responding again it is seen as a new window by the Taskbar and is placed last in its group. You can verify this by running ProcDump with the -h switch.
There is nothing you can do to prevent it. You could file a bug and hope it gets fixed.
If it is that important to you, you could create a little app that hides the "wrong" IDE window and then just shows it again, that should change the order. You could also try playing with ITaskbarList.
Related
this has been bugging me for quite a while now.
I'm using two monitors and usually have the main window of Visual Studio open on the primary monitor and things like the solution explorer, call stack, error list, output etc. on the second monitor in two separate windows which I split vertically by using the [Win] + [Left | Right] shortcut.
In another environment, this works fine (VS 2013, different machine). Of course, the window positions etc. are different between debug and regular view, but that's not really an issue.
Whenever I start debugging, the solution explorer window moves towards the right on the second monitor. This might even affect the other window (which contains the Call Stack, Output etc.).
After a few debug sessions, the window will be barely visible any more because it has moved so far towards the right...
This is even worse when I have multiple solutions open because then the solution explorer window that I see is actually the one from the instance in the background...
Has anyone else experienced this? Any ideas how to fix this?
P.S.: I'm working on a windows server via a RDP session, maybe that contributes to the problem.
The following worked for me.
Under the Windows menu, save the desired layout with "Save Window Layout". I named mine "Debug". This might have something to do with the old layout names.
Stop debug mode if your in it, and apply that layout with "Apply Window Layout".
Start debug mode.
My un-docked windows flash as if they are resizing, yet stay where I had them in the saved layout.
This question is solely about workflow in VS2013. In VS2012, when I would build my app, VS would display the app on the second monitor attached to my system. This was nice because I could see my IDE while I interacted with the app. However, in VS2013, the app always just displays over the IDE, so I have "move it out of the way" just to get back to the code. I would like VS2013 behavior to match that found in VS2012. Is there a setting in the IDE that I can switch on to ensure the app displays on the second monitor?
I did find another question on SO about this regarding VS2012, but the solution there does not work for Win8.1 using VS2013. Is there an option for this?
it's not exactly the answer to your question - garaber has already addressed that - but also useful in this context is that you can move a window to a different display using the keyboard -
windows-shift-left arrow
and
windows-shift-right arrow
fast, easy way to move a window to an adjacent display (either to the right or the left)
EDIT:
should have noted that this is not confined to visual studio - this is a feature introduced with windows 7 and works with any window.
Here's a couple of good links that will show you how to do what you're wanting:
Save and restore form position and size
Restoring window size and position with multiple monitors
You can also change your principal screen, and it works :
In, Screen Resolution : set your second screen as a principal screen.
When a breakpoint is hit in Visual Studio, it steals the focus from whatever other application the programmer is viewing/typing into at that moment. This can be very irritating since VS grabs any keyboard input the programmer was typing into the other application at that moment and takes that input as its own.
What are the tricks you folks use to prevent this focus steal?
(I face this on Visual C++ 2008 and 2010. I am guessing it is a problem for Visual Studio in general and for all recent versions.)
This is finally fixed in VS2019. Go to Tools->Options->Debugging->General, down at the bottom is "Bring Visual Studio to the foreground when breaking in the debugger."
Just de-select it and you will no longer be interrupted while multitasking.
This is a registry setting. See ForegroundLockTimeout at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc957208.aspx. Zero allows applications to steal focus. TweakUI sets this value to 200000 when "Prevent applications from stealing focus" is checked.
For more control, download the Tweak UI utility of Powertoys for Windows XP. In the "General" tab, select "Focus" and check "Prevent applications from stealing focus".
Google search for ForegroundLockTimeout at http://www.google.com/search?q=ForegroundLockTimeout
Bing search for Prevent applications from stealing focus at http://www.bing.com/search?q=Prevent+applications+from+stealing+focus
Applications Stealing Focus on Windows XP at http://mycvs.org/archives/2004/11/16/applications-stealing-focus-on-windows-xp for screen capture of TweakUI.
Please Don't Steal My Focus, Coding Horror, Jeff Atwood at http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/12/please-dont-steal-my-focus.html
The strange thing is, there are
provisions built into the operating
system to protect us from badly
written, focus stealing applications.
The ForegroundLockTimeout registry
setting is expressly designed to
prevent applications from stealing
focus from the user. The OS silently
converts that inappropriate focus
stealing behavior into friendlier,
less invasive taskbar button flashing,
which is the subject of the
ForegroundFlashCount registry setting.
How To Prevent Programs from Stealing Focus in Windows XP at http://www.howtodothings.com/computers-internet/how-to-prevent-programs-from-stealing-focus-in-windows-xp
Right click the breakpoint and select When hit ... this will allow you to run a function when the breakpoint is hit. You can use this to print status messages to the output window. You application will keep focus.
By accident I discovered a workaround, which I've been using for a few years now and while I haven't tested it in 2008 and 2010, it certainly works in 2013, '15 & '17 and at least Windows 7 & 10.
It relies on the fact that Visual Studio will not steal focus if another Visual Studio instance is paused in execution. Obviously the only thing as special as VS is another VS. :-/
Open a second instance of VS with a simple project. Pause the execution of the project anyway you like (e.g. put a breakpoint on the first line of execution and debug), you can then simply minimise that VS and none of the VS instances you're actually using will steal focus.
This is is obviously a heavy weight solution, but if you have ample RAM (the CPU usage of the idle VS doesn't even register for me), it works well. I haven't tried it with inter-version instances (e.g. pausing in '13 to make '17 behave), but if that works you'll probably want to opt to use the older version instance as your "dummy" VS to cut down on resource use.
One workaround is to use OutputDebugString() function to output current state into the debugger output window. You just place Visual Studio in background, position the debugged program window so that the "Output" window is visible - and no focus transition ever happens.
You will perhaps want to use macros for conditional compilation so that tracing code is not included into the release builds.
Most of the time I work Visual Studio with two monitors.
I setup my Visual Studio to sit nicely across both monitors with code on the one side and property windows etc. on the other.
However, occasionally I need to remove into my work station from home where I only have one monitor.
What ends up happening is I have to re-setup my entire workspace to be used on one monitor, and when I get back to my work station I have to undo this again to get to my optimal 2 monitor environment.
Is there a way to save some set layouts in Visual Studio so I could quickly switch back and forward?
Example: One Monitor Layout versus Two Monito Layout?
stumbled upon this which really helped:
link text
The actual solution seems to throw an error for me, but one of the comments suggests you use your "full screen" view to do it.
So I setup my screen the way I like it.
Then I press "shift+alt+enter" which turns on full screen mode.
I then setup my environment for "One Screen mode: (ironic, I know)
Visual Studio now remembers my full screen setup.
So now when I remote in I can just press "shift+alt+enter" and I'm in one screen mode.
Hopefully this post will help someone else, otherwise I would be interested to hear other solutions.
I am using Visual Studio 2010 with Windows 7
I use Visual Studio 2008. I haven't seen this behavior before and, as far as I know, I didn't change anything in the options.
When I press Start debugging all the possibly windows (watch 1 - 4), data sources, properties, registers (to be honest I have not even ever seen these windows before) appear in front of the code window and stay there after I stop the debugger.
Anyone has an idea what could be causing this ? (I am using CodeRush and Refactor for quite a while now)
When I close and restart visual studio all the windows are where they should be.
PS: Previously I have seen normal switching from normal to debug mode and back with some repositioning changes. That is the way it used to work. Now it is not. It has suddenly gone mad and when going to the debug mode it sometimes shows all possible IDE windows and sometimes not. When it does it no longer returns to the previous state. I cannot find this in the options anywhere.
Visual Studio remembers 2 sets of window layouts, normal mode and debugging mode. My solution is to arrange my normal windows exactly like I want them, then start debugging an application and once again arrange all of the windows the way I want, usually making it as similar to my normal layout as possible, then stopping the debugger and doing a File Exit so that VS saves my settings.
After doing that, it recalls my 2 different layouts each time.
I'm experiencing the same thing - whenever the debugger is running, switching focus back to the IDE immediately caused the debug panel to expand.
I ended up just pinning the debug panel so that it always appears when debugging, and just changing its height as needed.
To add to palehorse, another tip is Full Screen mode.