Visual Studio | Window layer grid - visual-studio

I just signed up on this site because I think here are the most qualified people for answering my questions. Maybe someday I can answer some too :)
<p>Hello, Stackoverflow!</p>
Here is my question:
There are many beautiful IDE's like Atom or Sublimetext where you can adjust your window layer just like you want. Now, i find trouble in Visual Studio doing this.
Here is a preview how it should look like (Atom)
This is my favourite layout and i want this to be in VS
So, is it possible? Maybe with an extension or even a built in function?

Related

Visual Studio Sidebar Navigation

I am looking for free extension that has one simple functionality which is sidebar file navigation like is in SuperCharger or Resharper (see attached screenshots). Sadly both of them are paid :-( Does anyone have a good alternative?
Visual studio has Class View window for a quite a while.
You can try Productivity Power Tools, with it, you can:
Expand code files to navigate to its classes, expand classes to navigate to their members, and so on (C# and VB only)
Search your solution, all the way down to class members
Filter your solution or projects to see just opened files, unsaved files, and so on
View related information about classes and members (such as references or callers/callees for C#)
Preview images by hovering over them, or preview rich information by hovering over code items
We've also added support for multiple selection and drag & drop.
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=VisualStudioProductTeam.ProductivityPowerTools
I know its an old question, but as i was looking for an alternative to supercharger // Resharper (for the navigation only) few days ago, and had looked on stack before doing my search (and as I found the answers not exactly what i was looking for) ...
After testing a few extensions I finally found a good alternative to those two paid solutions :
https://github.com/sboulema/CodeNav/blob/master/README.md
You can also just download it from the extensions menu , search for CodeNav .
Best.

Visual studio XAML IDE Vertical tag visualisation

Im just wondering what you use to get the vertical visualisation lines between XAML open and close tags, it makes the XMALso much easier to read.
I cant find a better place to ask this but im sure there might be, sorry if its broken the rules.
Do you mean the Visual Studio extension called "Indent Guides": https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/e792686d-542b-474a-8c55-630980e72c30 ?
It puts little guides in your VS2013 (and perhaps 2012) that show indents in the XAML editor. If you didn't mean that, I'd still recommend a look as it makes things a lot easier to read!

Changing Style of Buttons, knobs, etc. in Visual C++

I am very new to Visual c++ and am still trying to learn some very basic things. I am trying to change the default pictures for knobs, buttons, etc. and replace them with my own pictures. How Can I accomplish this? (I am using Microsoft Visual C++ 2010).
You will need to learn how to "ownerdraw" your controls (buttons, ... ); or if you go the easier way, you can use bitmaps in CButton (CBitmapButton) but it might not be enough for you.
This MSDN technical note is a good start : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bk2h3c6w%28VS.71%29.aspx

How can I customize the text editor or color tag parts of my code in Visual Studio?

How do I customize, extend the text editor, or color tag parts of my code?
I would like Visual Studio to color code parts of my code. Can I use #region and give it a color?
Is there any way to make the background between two parentheses have a different color? (I want each code "block" to have its own color.)
I've looked here for some insight, but they all are implemented based "on what you select". All I want is to have the text editor "render" the text in a different way based on some rules.
I haven't seen such feature, but there is something quite close to what you are looking for in ReSharper. A setting called "Highlight matching delimiters". Looks like this in use:
I wanted tell you this because
1) You might be interested in resharper and
2) resharper is able to do the highlighting so maybe someone can make an add-in or something to add this kind of feature. Maybe you? :)
I don't know of anything exactly like what you're asking for, but the VS10x Code Map extention might help: http://www.axtools.com/products-vs2010-extensions.php
It will give you a nice overview of the code on the side, and make navigation somewhat easier.
The download button on the right lets you download a trial version from the Visual Studio Gallery at msdn.microsoft.com. I think you can also find it directly from the extentions view in VS2010.

Browsing Classes, Objects, etc

Question ONE:
I'm still pretty new to .net, but have used Visual Studio for a few recent projects. I'm now working a new project and I was wondering if visual studio had anything built in that would allow you to browse all of the details about a control, etc..
Is MSDN the best place to go for this?
For instance if I wanted to see of all the methods, properties, etc.. Is there anything inside VS?
Question TWO:
Can anyone recommend, books, resources, that deal specificially with Visual Studio? What each window does, etc.. I have used it enough to complete a few projects, but I haven't seen much in the way of exactly what everything does and why.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Use reflector (it's free!) to get in-depth information about classes etc. Visual studio also has a built-in Object Browser.
P.S. Reflector allows you to reverse engineer assemblies as well, allowing you to view the actual code of a class / method.
P.P.S. Google is still a developer's best friend. Need information on a control, search for it on the web. (Which will lead you to MSDN a lot of the times, but will also get you examples and loads of blog entries).
Question ONE:
You can use the Object Browser (menu View\Object Browser) to see a hierarchical list of all known assemblies, classes, interfaces, enums, etc...
This only gives the signature of each item and not the code.
If you want to see the code, use .Net reflector.
You can also use the Object Browser in Visual Studio. There is usually an icon for it at the top (by the Toolbox, Solution Explorer, etc. icons) or you can navigate to it (View -> Object Browser). When it opens, you will see all of the libraries currently referenced (system and third party) on the left hand side. It's hierarchical, so you can start drilling down. There is a search box at the top, if you want to look for a particular class, method or library. That looks at all the system libraries, not just the ones referenced in your current project.
For more help with the object browser, look here.
Q1:
In Visual Studio:
Above the editor there are 2 dropdown lists:
Left: Shows Classes
Right: Shows Class Members
or Click View > Class View: to see all the classes in the whole solution
I had a similar rub when I started using VS after I had done a lot of Java coding. I was used to the Java API documentation to research properties and such.
I found the VS equivalent IMO, here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms229335.aspx
You can browse every class method, property, constructor, etc. right there. Their examples are decent.
In response to question 1, what I usually do is highlight the bit of framework code I'm interested in and hit F1 to bring up the documentation. For example:
Button myButton = new Button();
If you highlight the first Button and hit F1, you'll get an overview on Buttons in Windows Forms. If you highlight Button() and hit F1 you'll get the documentation on the Button class constructor.
In response to question 2, I'm not sure a book is the answer. I think reading a book on all the components of Visual Studio might be overkill. I'd say to keep on hacking away at your projects and page-fault information in via MSDN, Google, and StackOverflow as you need it. As with any IDE and framework, the more you use it the better you'll get at navigating and learning the ins and outs.

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