Imagine I have two branches (default and production) of the same solution "checked out" locally. Now, when I open these two in Visual Studio there's absolutely no way to distinguish them at a glance. Is there any way I can configure Visual Studio to somehow differentiate solutions opened from different paths? Think SQL Server Management Studio:
Rename Visual Studio Window Title seems to do almost what I need. Changing settings to 1-2-2-False seem to produce decent results.
And here's more to that end.
Related
I am experiencing a weird behavior of visual studio 2008 and VS 2010. I had only Visual Studio 2008 on my machine having OS windows Server 2008 R2, at point i did some window layout reset and post that visual studio's window layout is acting strange, it is getting docked or un-docked if i debug a solution. I re-install the visual studio 2008 but problem still exists...Strangely i have newly installed Visual 2010 pro and it seems to have the same issue. I am wondering which system file got corrupted and y it is only with Visual Studios. Please help.
This is normal behavior, actually, for all versions of Visual Studio. There is nothing wrong with your computer or your installation.
Visual Studio has at least two different window layout modes. One of them is the design-time mode, and the other one is the debugging mode.
When you start debugging, the environment switches to the debug mode. In the default configuration, that will cause windows to rearrange themselves (some that were hidden appear, some that were visible disappear, others just change position). into a layout that is deemed "optimal" for debugging code.
The idea is that different window layouts are likely to be optimal for different purposes. In design mode, I might want the Toolbox and Properties windows to be visible. I don't need those at all in debug mode, and would rather devote my screen space to the Immediate, Output, and Auto Variables windows instead.
It can be confusing, because you have to rearrange your windows twice, once for each mode. The good news is that any changes you make will "stick", meaning that they will be saved and re-used each time you enter that mode.
If you really don't like it, just arrange your environment so that it is identical in both modes.
Related: Can I save the window layout in Visual Studio 2010/2012/2013?
For some reason, on a new computer, Visual Studio won't auto-close curled brackets.
if(Username.Text.Equals()) {
And it doesn't auto-close. Works perfectly on all other machines I've installed VS2010 on. And now it just won't.
And there doesn't seem to be a setting in the options menu to alter this behavior. What do I need to do?
I'm not sure if this is actually built in to vs2010. But you can install the MS Productivity Power Tools (Productivity Power Tools for Visual Studio 2012) Which will give you brace auto completion. this is quite a common add in so maybe the other copies of VS you have tried have it installed??
Visual Studio will auto-format matching pairs of brackets as you type, but I have never seen this on Visual Studio 'out of the box'.
According to this Microsoft Connect entry, it's officially not on VS2010, having been cut due to time priority issues vs time constraints.
However, add ons like the free Microsoft Productivity Power Tools, or the not-so-free JetBrains ReSharper will add this functionality for you. Perhaps you had one of these (or other similar) add-ons installed in the other computers you have previously worked on.
Is there any setting or plug-in to improve the solution explorer? Specifically, it would be amazing if I could have something like the windows file explorer, with folders on the left and files on the right (or split in two panes I can arrange any way I like).
In larger projects, I feel like I am constantly frustrated by scrolling up and down trying to find things, it's driving me crazy! Any suggestions would be appreciated.
This is for VS 2010
Mindscape Visual Studio File Explorer
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/7193af78-b06e-48dd-8994-9deb2bfa1959
Also check Productivity Power Tools (http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/d0d33361-18e2-46c0-8ff2-4adea1e34fef?SRC=Home). There is nice thing - Solution Navigator
You can check this add in seems to be for visual studio 2005 but the source code is there
It's common for me to have 20+ files opened in Visual Studio (I use VS 2008 now, but we will migrate to VS 2010, soon.). Is there any add-in which could help organize actively opened files?
I mean something like Firefox colorful tabs or a tab-manager which will group windows tabs by projects or folders,...
Visual Studio Power tools will do it for 2010, out of luck for 2008 (as far as I know).
There are versions of Power tools for all the newer Visual Studios.
Newest: VS Power tools 2015
You can have them color coded by assembly, most recently used up front, and several other sorting/grouping options
Tabs Studio document tabs manager add-in (developed by me) supports VS 2010+ and VS 2008.
I like the alternative approach proposed by the 'Tidy Tabs' extension.
Rather than providing you with a mechanism to manage billions of tabs, it helps by automatically monitoring and cleaning up your tabs to only display the ones that you have most recently been using.
It's free too. :)
From the extension page:
Tidy Tabs keeps your document well organized by closing tabs that are no longer being used. Tabs that have not been viewed in a configurable amount of time can be closed with a keyboard shortcut (CTRL+ALT+ESC) or closed automatically whenever you save a document.
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/b80ab284-83f8-4022-bc78-95af126ba5f0
This is easily one of the most annoying "features" of Visual Studio in its history and I don't understand why it exists -- ever.
Why would a CodePlex project need to care what version of Visual Studio I am using?
Off the top of my head, the only thing I can think of is that some versions of Visual Studio might introspect assemblies searching for attributes to determine what to display in "Visual Designers" and "Property Editors". But why would that cause Visual Studio to not be able to open the project and allow me to browse its contents and compile?
It seems to me like Open Source in .NET is somewhat limited by the stupid dependency management exhibited by Visual Studio. In other words, if I am using Visual Studio 2008 and you are using Visual Studio 2010, then we have different solution files.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2010/03/15/why-does-visual-studio-2010-convert-my-projects.aspx
Here's an example from the site as to why Visual Studio converts your projects to 2010 format.
For instance, Visual Studio runs
custom tools such as single file
generators for designers in order to
output code representing the changes
made to the designer. Many of these
custom tools are upgraded or
completely replaced in the newer IDE.
During conversion, the IDE knows which
custom tools to replace or upgrade. In
order to make round-tripping work, VS
would need old and new custom tools to
understand each other so as to ensure
that old and new designers can work
side by side. Other than designers,
the following files would also be
affected: resource editors, wizards,
code snippets, item and project
templates, diagramming and modeling
tools, and many more.tools, and many more.
Since 2010 knows about what tools 2008 has, it can convert forward to be compatible with the custom tools 2010 uses. 2008 has no idea about what 2010 is using, how could it? Therefore, it is impossible to convert backwards since it doesn't know what it needs to convert, nor how to.
I believe the purpose of this touches on what you stated in your comments. If you are using 2008 and I 2010 and I compile it, how could you possibly run it again? 2010 is backwards compatible but 2008 has no way to make itself forward compatible.
Thus, by recompiling the project in 2010 I ensure that no 2008 user may mistakenly think they can compile it.