When I opened Visual Studio today, I observed there is a change in the background colour of the tabs, as shown in the picture.
How can I set it to the old/default color? Following Tools->Options, I didn't manage to find anything helpful.
You have the Productivity Power Tools extension installed, which, among other features, allows customizing the colors of tabs. The idea is that you can color tabs based either on the project with which they are associated and/or the language in which the file is written (which is implemented via the file extension).
These tab-coloring features are all part of the general "Custom Document Well" package, which provides a bunch of advanced customization options for the document tabs. If you don't want any of these, but use other features of Productivity Power Tools, then you can turn them off. Go to Tools → Settings → Productivity Power Tools, and then turn "off" Custom Document Well:
If you just want to disable the coloring and return the tabs to their default colors, then go to Tools → Settings → Productivity Power Tools → Custom Document Well, and uncheck both of the "Color tabs" checkboxes:
If you just don't like the default colors and want to change them, then you can do so by going to Tools → Settings → Productivity Power Tools → Custom Document Well → Color Coding:
There are other interesting options, too; be sure to explore! Personally, this is one of my favorite features because it allows me to distinguish between headers, C code, C++ code, assembly code, and resource files at a glance, making it easy to find the one I want to switch to. I can recognize colors a lot faster than I can read names. (The project coloring is less useful to me since I tend to work on only one project at a time, but I can see that being very useful, too, for the same reasons. Humans have evolved to distinguish color very quickly.)
Update: This is not available for Visual Studio 2019; see this Developer Community thread where support was requested by the community and subsequently denied by Microsoft.
Just FYI:
In Productivity Power Tools 2017 instead of Settings → Productivity Power Tools → Custom Document Well you should enable additional extension, that will be installed while Productivity Power Tools installation:
After that you will see tab for setting up colored tabs:
So if you want to disable colored tabs - just disable Custom Document Well extension
Update: This is not available for Visual Studio 2019.
Visual Studio 2022 give this feature out of the box.
Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Tabs and Windows -> Colorize document tabs by Project
As a shortcut you can directly change it from the text editor
Go to Tools -> Options
Click on font and colors in the left hand pane
Now either
you can USE DEFAULTS to reset the settings and try to customise your settings again.
or you can select the item from Show settings for dropdown.. find the tab colour in the one it shows in your dropdown. Change the font background colour
Related
i am trying to set the tab size to 2 characters in Tools, Options, Text Editor, All languages, Tabs. When i do this, I can see that the tab settings in all other languages change. Also going back into code and forth in to settings i can see that the settings are applied (or didn't desapear).
Now, with the Keys STRG-K, STRG-F all the settings are gone!
What is overriding/overwriting my settings?
Note: I already removed the check of Text Editor, Advanced, Use adaptive formatting. Also i didn't find any .editorconfig file in my project overriding my settings.
Thanks in advance!
Visual Studio 2022
It seems that the color coding of my Visual Studio 2019 suddenly changed. When I check the settings in Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Font and Colors and then for example User Members - Methods, I see that it no longer has a foreground color. My colleague with the same VS has this set to Olive.
I was happy with the default settings, and I'd rather not spend hours to replicate the default settings as they used to be. So what changed this color scheme, and how do I get it back? The first picture shows color coding like it was, the second how it is now (I hate it).
Why do I often find the answer after days of searching, and then after posting the question to SO?
At Tools -> Options -> Text Editor -> C# -> Advanced scroll down to end, at "Editor Color Scheme" there is a combo box which was set to Visual Studio 2017. It should be Visual Studio 2019 to get the colors back.
I still don't understand why this automagically changed though.
Have you tried to disable "Use enhanced colors for C# and Basic" in Tools -> Options -> Text Editor -> C# -> Advanced?
For me there was an issue when I updated to version ~17.2.26. All the colors got blend and barely visible. Removing extensions, returning to default settings or safe mode changed nothing.
What helped was upgrade to 17.3. This applies to 2022, though.
After upgrading to Visual Studio 2015, holding control while clicking on a symbol navigates to that symbol definition. In prior versions, this would instead select the entire word.
How can I disable the navigation event when CTRL + Click(ing) a symbol, so that it highlights the word?
I do have Resharper (Ultimate 9.2) installed. The configuration option under Environment -> Search & Navigation -> Go to Declaration on Control + Click in the editor is not checked.
All the search engine results make mention of this being a feature of the Productivity Power Tools extensions in previous versions of Visual Studio. I do not have that extension installed.
I found my solution in the "Options - Text Editor - General" settings. This was on VS 2017 thou.
To disable navigation to symbol definitions in VS2015,
this one worked for me.
With Resharper Ultimate 2016.3.1, I could fix the issue by disabling "Rich mouse navigation in the editor". It can be found in Resharper Options window, under Environment > Search & Navigation.
Maybe updating Resharper could solve the issue.
Also, Productivity Power Tools is not installed on my machine.
In vs 2017 this setting is available in Tools -> Options -> Text Editor -> General -> Enable mouse click to perform Go to Definition.
You can uncheck it!
Go to ReSharper Options > Environment > Search & Navigation, then uncheck the following options:
Rich mouse navigation in the editor
Enable 'Smart go to declaration'
I finally solved it following the info I found on this page..
edit
Ensure you are using Visual Studio as your resharper keyboard scheme.
Environment -> Keyboard & Menus
Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Keyboard
To stop the go to declaration, select it and input a new key short cut for it. In this image I have demonstrated that I changed this short cut to ctr num 1 and could not change it to ctr num 3. On testing crt click does not no take me to the declaration.
Find the shortcut you want to remove, in this case Edit.NavigateTo and remove.
An update for Productivity Power Tools + VS2017. Instead of having settings for this feature, a separate plugin gets installed. So after installing PPTs, you'll have a new extension called Ctrl+Click Go To Definition. Not sure why we need that tool considering it's baked into VS, but...
Anyway, Disabling that extension (plus the other things mentioned in other comments for VS and Resharper) fixed my ctrl+click woes.
To switch to the Visual C# keyboard mapping scheme
On the Tools menu, click Options.
Expand Environment, and then click Keyboard.
Select Visual C# 2005 from the Apply the following application
keyboard mapping scheme drop-down list.
or you can do
Keyboard: CTRL + W
also plugin can be used
Keyboard Shortcut Exporter
you can import/export keymapping file
Visual Studio can be quite slow to open and work with. The menus and auto-hide windows can get sluggish and commands take a while to start. What are the list of things one can do to make the UI of Visual Studio load faster and operate faster? What settings can one change to make it feel lean and minimal?
PS: I know Visual Studio Express is way leaner and faster. However, I rely on some Visual Studio addons, and addons are not supported in Express.
PS2: I have already closed all unnecessary windows. All diagnostic windows are on auto-hide. And all the tool bars are closed. I work almost completely using keyboard shortcuts.
Here are some tips, actually collected from following blog posts
###VS2008
Improve Visual Studio's Source View Performance
Tips to improve performance of visual studio IDE
Visual Studio 2008 Tweaks
###VS2010
Visual Studio 2010 Performance Part 1: Startup
Visual Studio 2010 Performance Part 2: Text Editor
Visual Studio 2010 Performance Part 3: A Technical Update
###Tips
Turn off background HTML validation.
Go to Tools / Options and select Text
Editor / HTML / Validation in the
tree view on the left side. Uncheck the Show Errors
check box.
Turn off AutoRecover. Go to Tools /
Options and select Environment /
AutoRecover in the tree view.
Uncheck the Save AutoRecover check box.
Close your property grid (View /
Properties Window)
web.config should not have <compilation batch=”false” />
Turn off AutoToolboxPopulate (Tools
-> Options -> Windows Forms Designer set AutoToolboxPopulate False)
Turn off Track Active item (Tools ->
Options -> Projects and Solutions
uncheck Track Active Item in Solution
Explorer)
Disable Navigation Bar(Tools ->
Options -> Text Editor -> C#, uncheck
Navigation bar)
Move file in App_Code into a class
library project
Disable validation Options for HTML
Editing (Tools -> Options ->
Validation -> Clear show error
checkbox)
I know that VS 2008 slowed down from VS 2005. I feel this pain every once in a while when im doing a quick Find or Find-Replace, or Find-In-Solution...etc. The UI sometimes isn't as fast as your hands are (when you're using keyboard shortcuts).
I found that just slowing down sometimes is the way to do it (it sucks, but then again, so does many things about Windows).
If it's load times youre concerned about; disable the startup stuff (from the Options menu). Here you can choose to load a blank screen upon VS load AND not to subscribe to any news feeds. (this helps alot depending on your internet connection).
you can also, via Options, adjust the visual animations that occur, as well as just disabling them altogether.
If there's anything else im missing, which im sure there is, i'd really like to know as well!
One thing that can potentially speed up visual studio is to disable document navigation.
Go to Tools -> Options -> Text Editor -> and uncheck 'Navigation Bar'.
This is definitately an option in 2008, pretty sure its in 2005 too.
Another option to try:
Go to Tools -> Options -> Text Editor and Uncheck 'Track Changes'.
Without knowing the information I posted in the comments I will say the typical stuff. Turn off all addons, if you are using vista or 7 switch to basic vs aero, check all running processes. This is where I would start.
There's a lot of new things going on in the Productivity Power Tools extensions, and I find that many of the new features come with very weird color combinations, that many times make the text completely illegible. I assume this is because I've previously set a dark theme for Visual Studio, and some, but not all, of the settings that affect the extension have been changed.
Are there any good dark themes out there that have been put together after the Productivity Tools Extension was published, that create a unified color theme for both VS and the extension features?
Clarification: This question is not about color schemes for code, such as those found at studiostyles. I'm talking about color schemes that apply to the development environment itself; toolboxes, menus, tooltips, windows, buttons...
Install the Visual Studio Color Theme Editor extension:
Make your own color scheme or try: The Dark Expression Blend Color Theme (preview below)
Once you have that, you'll want schemes for the text editor as well. This site has several, including the VS2012 "dark" theme implemented for VS2010.
There is a style that I've created based on dark style from VS 2015 to use on my VS 2010. You can download this style from Dark Style from VS 2015.
After download it, just import through menu Tools -> Import and Export Settings...
So, I tested above themes and found out none of them are showing proper color combination when using Productivity Power Tools in Visual Studio.
Ultimately, being a fan of dark themes, I created one myself which is fully supported from VS2005 to VS2013.
Here's the screenshot
Download this dark theme from here: Obsidian Meets Visual Studio
To use this theme go to Tools -> Import and Export Setting... -> import selected environment settings -> (optional to save current settings) -> Browse select and then Finish.
Not sure if any of these help, but this might get you started: http://studiostyles.info
I know that the site owner has been gradually adding functionality to allow support for new color assignments, so perhaps there's something there.
You can also try this handy online tool, which generates .vssettings file for you.
Visual Studio Color Theme Generator