Just installed VS 2013 (was previously on 2010) and I deeply regret it. I'm so glad the company picked up the tab!
I've read around a bit and found that a lot of people hate the VS 2012/2013 look & feel, and there are tools and tips to bring back the 2010 look & feel in VS 2012. However I couldn't find something like that for 2013 and wondering if I missed it or it just wasn't invented yet.
Edit: Two things I did find which someone else might be interested in too:
Disabling the ALL CAPS menus (this is is another SO question and found easily)
Disabling the file contents expanding (this appears to be less known and god knows how this guy even found it...
Edit #2: In the end I didn't use the themes in the provided answer. It seems that the "close to 2010" theme comes built-in in 2013 under the "Blue" name. I decided not to bother with icons and colors beyond that, to try and get used to these icons. The hacks above, coupled with VSCommands proved sufficient for me.
Here's a great tool for customizing your VS UI. It works with 2012 or 2013. There's also quite a few different themes available around the web, some of which mimic the UI of 2010.
Visual Studio 2012 Color Theme Editor
Related
I saw a lot of good comments about ReSharper. So I gave it a try and I really like it. I even suggested to my team to use it and to put some money in this tool. But they sad "We better put the money in updating Visual Studio because newer versions come with almost all ReSharper features" as we are using Visual Studio 2010.
Is ReSharper useless in Visual Studio 2015 or 2017?
This might not be an answer, just my own opinion.
VS2017 is doing very well without R#. however, some important functions are still not there in VS2017, e.g. renaming namespaces, and here R# role arises.
Some where else, I find R# make the things bad, for example, I don't like how the R# renames the properties, it gives and new popup window, where VS2017 renames it immediately.
So what I mean, sometimes R# might be useful, but if you are not using it, you are absolutely safe and productive.
I am still waiting for any video or article where it is described, what are the flagship killers functions in R# which VS2017 doesn't have (except renaming namespaces ;)).
UPDATE:
What I actually suggest is, install use the refactoring suggestions of R# because they are awesome, but keep the default key mapping of VS2017.**
UPEATE 2:
I have been working for 1 year without resharper, and I am very ok and do not miss any function, except renaming namespaces.
UPDATE 3:
I miss the function of extracting a method to an existing interface in Visual Studio 2017, which already exists in ReSharper.
ReSharper is not useless in newer versions of Visual Studio, but there are a lot of features and shortcuts that come baked right into VS. My opinion would be that if you are new to developing in VS, look into the features it already has and make the best use of them. After all, what good is a Porsche if you cant drive? Here are a couple of links you should check out.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/da5kh0wa.aspx
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms366750(v=vs.90).aspx
I would like to know (as I've failed so far in finding such a feature in the VS's options),
if there is a feature which allow for scope highlighting same as seen in the BlueJ IDE for java,
here is an example:
Note how the code blocks are all highlighted with color,
when learning java using blueJ i found it to be extremely easy on the eye when looking at code,
and everything felt a lot more organized,
moving to C# and working on MS visual studio, its all text with some highlighting, Class names, keywords etc etc,
but in general it still feel like a black text on a white background and lacking that organized feeling i sorely miss from blueJ,
i noticed there is a similar question here referring to eclipse,
Eclipse IDE Scope Highlighting?
just to be on the safe side, ill ask again referring to Visual studio,
is there such a feature in VS? is there an add-on \ plugin for VS which allows it?
Thanks in advance for your answer.
Microsoft provides a free Productivity Power Tools extension for Visual Studio 2013 and 2015. This has a "Structure Visualizer" feature similar to the CodeRush plugin. Both are more subtle than the BlueJ style, but should make scopes a little clearer.
Productivity Power Tools 2013
Productivity Power Tools 2015
Update
Visual Studio 2017 integrated a version of this into the core application for C#, Visual Basic, F#, and XAML (as Structure Guide Lines). However, C++ still requires an extension.
Look at the DevExpress CodeRush plugin, there is a 30-day trial version.
The function it provides is called "Structural highlighting", and I think its even better than what you want (and its customizable).
CodeRush Express
CodeRush Documentation
I have Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate installed. It includes a lot of features that I rarely use, mostly around Team Explorer and Architecture and Modeling Tools. These things have a ton of commands and menus and context menu items that really clutter my display and probably slow down VS launching etc.
Is it possible to deactivate these components without uninstalling Ultimate and installing Pro instead? I do use these components on rare occasions and don't want them completely gone, just temporarily disabled.
I looked at the installer's "change" options, and it only has high level options like "C#" and "Visual Basic", nothing about the modeling tools. These components also do not show up in the addins or extensions lists.
(I'm fine with a hacky solution, like renaming a folder or editing an XML file.)
Adam Driscoll to the rescue.
http://csharpening.net/?p=640
He wrote a tool called VSTweaker that does exactly this.
I have been using the RC version of VS2010 for a while now. I wanted to know if anyone has a summary of what changed between the RC version and RTM?
I just loaded the RTM and noticed some small things different. I searched around but can't find anything around about it.
If there is nothing out there that lists these differences, can we start listing them here as you find them?
"No Intellisense with VS 2010 RC (and how to fix it)" is a blog post by Scott Gutherie about a couple of things that are different between RC and RTM. "Visual Studio 2010 Released" by Scott Hanselmann has a reference to a change between RC and RTM as well.
To be more specific in each:
First one references a blog post noting:
Why were the default options for
Intellisense turned off when I did a
fresh install of Visual Studio 2010
RC1?
The second one wasn't the right link, so I did change it, here's the key quote:
A little confusion about this in the
comments. Folks feel very strongly
about this stuff, understandably. Just
like color blindness, some people are
sensitive to this stuff and others
"can't see it." One person in the
blogs didn't like go for
"indiscernible" and showed a
screenshot. Here's the deal. If you
are running VS2010 RC, you don't have
this fix. This will be in the RTM.
Here's a 100% screenshot, followed by
the zoomed in version. The takeaway is
this. If you didn't like the rendering
before, you will now. This is/was some
subtle stuff, but it's indiscernible
in the RTM, so be happy! I took the
screenshot from a daily build, not the
actual RTM, which hasn't happened yet.
These aren't the only changes probably, but these were references to what I could easily find about it so I'm trying to give a useful answer here.
I have heard several podcasters (most recently the guys on DotNetRocks) say that the look and feel of Visual Studio 2010 has been completely redesigned and Visual Studio rewritten in WPF.
I have been watching some demos on channel9 of the Visual Studio 2010 CTP and the only thing that looks different to me is the opening screen.
I read the notice on MSDN, but it doesn't say anything about the look/design of Visual Studio.
Has Microsoft reversed direction on this or are there going to be major changes made to UI of the final product?
I'm guessing 3D with a space theme. You'll be able to "fly through" your code, "orbiting" classes, "shooting down" bugs and "launching" your code.
It's way too soon to make guesses about what it will look like: I don't even think that they know what it will look like.
However, from what I've heard, they are in fact rewriting portions to be WPF/C#, but they are not throwing everything out and starting from scratch. Instead, they will be rewriting portions as it makes sense. For example, I saw that they have some new UML tools that definitely look to be done in WPF.
Uh, the beta has been available for over a month. I have been playing with Visual Studio 2010 on and off. It is very similar to 2008 in overall design.
You can download it here and see for yourself where they are taking the product:
Download Page at Microsoft.com
There are a metic ton of videos on Channel9 about VS2010, TFS 2010 and then the PDC 2008 sessions online as well. They are also starting a new series called 10-4 dedicated just to VS2010 - a walk through of sorts.
Let's pray that they don't dink with anything, visually. My #1 guess is that they'll try and wrap the new office ribbon bar around our necks. ;|
I've heard that its going to have a historical debugger.
Also- this should prob be a wiki
From WPF Wonderland:
Visual Studio 2010 gets WPF facelift
WPF has been out for a couple years. That’s long enough that new releases of Microsoft products are sprouting WPF interfaces.
Last year at PDC Microsoft announced that the code editor in Visual Studio would be re-written in WPF. Microsoft didn’t stop at the code editor though. Today Jason Zander, GM for Visual Studio, revealed the new WPF based IDE.
Highlights from the PDC Keynote #1 on Day 2 (see: PDC website)
Multi-monitor support for the IDE via
WPF.
Building classes from test classes.
Toggle TFS bugs over a code segment
in Debug mode.
Partial config files for debug,
release.
WYSIWYG Silverlight Designer.