Can I set a conditional breakpoint without specifying a specific location? - visual-studio

Similar questions: One, Two. But this is not what I am looking for.
Similar questions, but said options are diabled: Three, Four, Five.
Situation: I want to identify the line where the value of the variable ApplianceState changes to the value normal. ApplianceState is an enum type and can have one of 4 different values. The project I am working on is quite huge and looking for it line-by-line could take days.
Question: Is there a way I can set a watch so that visual studio breaks at the line where the value of ApplianceState changes to normal?
I know I can set a conditional breakpoint, but that would mean I have to set a break point on certain line, and I don't want to do that.
Also, I have enabled native code debugging and the menu item New Data Breakpoint, in menu Debug -> New Breakpoint, is disabled (greyed out). So, I can't select it.

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Is there a way to properly dump the navigation history in Visual Studio?

Very frequently, I will be looking for a specific section of code where something happens, and will reach there by starting at a function at a high level of abstraction and go lower by successively opening the code of called methods. Eventually I will find what I'm looking for, and I would like to save the path that I took to get there - which is pretty much what the call stack would be if I had put a breakpoint in that code and stopped here at runtime, except that I'm just inspecting the code.
I'm aware the little arrow next to the "Back" arrow lets me somewhat get that in the UI and I can then take a screenshot of what I'm shown, but that's not a fantastic solution. The names of the functions are trimmed (leading to cases where it could match several functions), the line number is seldom shown (only if there was no code at that line), and I would much rather have the text format to begin with so I can copy the function names into a search tool rather than type them from the screenshot later.
So I was wondering: is there a way to dump the navigation history in Visual Studio ?
Where I could for ex. ask for the last 50 cursor positions, and get the file, file path, line number & possibly the code at that line in text format or some more intelligent thing, should the IDE support that.
Thanks.
PS: I found this very similar question Is there extension for viewing navigation history in Visual studio? that's >5 years old and didn't have a satisfying answer, so I'm trying my luck again, hoping things have changed since if there was no solution back then.

How to debug shaders using PIX

Simply I want to debug shaders, I tried Visual studio 2019 & 2022's graphic debuggers but they don't work and I tried the solution but it doesnt work either. DirectX12 is not supported by Visual Studio Graphic Debuggers
Thus I looked for an alternative and I found Pix, but I am struggling with the basics for instance, I can't use the watch menu to check the value of constants, it shows them as unavailable most of the time, I have to use constant menu to do so(but at-least this works).
The biggest Issue is this, When I step over/in lines, it does skip a single line or multiple lines and when I set a break point at any of these lines, it shows this message "No code exists at this location"
I cant tell whether these lines get processed or not from the debugger, and Most importantly I want to know the values they hold. Any Idea how to force pix to calculate every line?

VS2015: Can I mark down code?

When I'm working at someone else's code, sometimes it happens that I've found something useful that I likely will need to return later to.
Except the chances are that I forget where I've found that part and then I need to find it again. Nowadays I'm mostly using breakpoints to set these down, But I don't need these breakpoints for debugging, so I don't think that's the most efficient method. Something that could work for me is a sort of marker that functions marking down like a breakpoint, but does not affect debugging.
Will all these ways of breakpoints, search functions, finding references, and adding a Watches. I do have a feeling that such feature is present in Visual Studio already. But I havn't found it yet, I've already tried searching it up, but it looks like it hasn't asked before.
So, is there a feature in Visual Studio that let you mark down code like breakpoints, but just for the purpose of marking down?
There is more than one way to do so.
If I finde something interesting I mark it with a Bookmark.
Just STRG + K, STRK + K and it will be places on your current row.
With these Buttons you can switch to your bookmarks or delete them all. They are client based.
Visual Studio also gives you a "To Do List" Function. This one is triggered by comments in the code and seen for everyone with the right options used.
See here how it works in detail.
Yes, it's called a bookmark. This little toolbar is for bookmarks:
You can also use the Edit, Bookmarks... menu item and the View, Other Windows, Bookmark Window which among other things lets you see all of them and give them names.
One caveat: the bookmark binds to the line number, and doesn't move if you add or remove lines. So if you bookmark the first line of a function, then make changes above that, the bookmark won't be on the first line of a function any more.

Disable auto-indent certain items in Visual Studio 2005?

I don't mind most of the way that VS2005 auto-indents (or auto-formats) my C++ code, but certain items I don't want it to automatically indent. Like #define statements for example. It takes them and shoves them all the way to the left side of the screen, no matter how deep into my scope I type them. That's really really annoying.
Is there some way to alter this behaviour, besides completely disabling auto-indent/format?
If you have only a few examples you want to change (and don't mind re-correcting the indentation when there are whole section or file reformats), you can change the indentation to what you want, then move off the line.
The formatted indentation will return, but you can Undo (Ctrl+Z) and the indentation you want will return. (Note I haven't actually tested this in the C++ editor.)
As long as you don't mind "correcting" the indentation every time you edit the line (and the other times the whole section is reformatted), this allows you to have some lines alternately indented.
Try go to Options -> Text Editor -> C/C++ -> Tabs -> Indenting and change it to Block. When selected, new lines are automatically indented. The insertion point is placed at the same starting point as the preceding line.

Eclipse: Improve debugging and display variable values on mouseOver

Is it possible to view variable values in Eclipse when debugging? Right now when I "mouse over" a variable all I get is the definition.
e.g. for [int mLastView] I get [com.company.samples.MyClass.mLastView] instead of 1. The value that was assigned to it.
Also, is there anyway to improve debugging in Eclipse?
For starter: making the breakpoints visible as in VS (see below)?
Eclipse Break Point
Visual Studio Break Point
I posted this over at Stack Overflow and one of the suggestions was to go into Window -> Preferences -> Java -> Editor -> Hovers and select the Variable Values option and assign a modifier.
When I was first trying to resolve this issue, this was one of the options I looked at, but oddly enough, there was no Variable Values preference available, it was missing. Once my “fix” above was applied, it magically appeared:
Click to see the pictureBroken Link
Actually, since eclipse3.4, not only do you see the value of a variable when you pass the mouse over it, you can actually inspect it:
When debugging, hovers for variables have been enhanced to display an object inspector. The inspector will display logical structures according to the toggle setting in the visible Variables or Expressions view.
If you hit the breakpoint while you are debugging, you do see the value of the variable when you mouse over. You can also select an expression, and inspect the value of it's evaluation using the "Inspect" menu option. You can also use the "Variables" view to see the current value of all in-scope variables.
About breakpoint visibility:
Right-click on the right outline of the editor, you'll see some Preferences, and there in Annotations you can select Breakpoints. I personally added Text as Highlighted and some pinky colour. Shame that the highlighting is really buggy, sticks here and there, breaks between lines, etc. But it somehow works for most cases.
(Another shame is that breakpoint bullet is often hidden behind some suggestion icon or what - why they can't make the gutter wider like Idea does, I don't know.)
I got similar but a little different problem with the thread-starter. Sometimes during debugging, I mouse over a variable, I see it current value. Sometimes it's just the definition, like in coding mode. So what caused the first case, what the second?
PS: Of course I can always choose to view Variables (Alt+Shift+Q,V) but it's faster if you have mouse over value instantly.
Thanks

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