I'm looking for a syntax highlighter for Visual Studio Express. I love Visual Assist, however it only works with Visual Studio Professional Edition, not Express.
Visual Studio 2010 actually has fairly decent syntax highlighting but there are some things I really miss from Visual Assist that I'm hoping I can find for VS Express, specifically:
Highlighting local variables in bold, and italicizing stable variables and methods.
Highlighting variables/methods/objects throughout a file just by clicking on it, and highlighting reads in a different color than writes (VS colors reads/writes the same color).
Syntax highlighting within Intellisense and auto-complete option dialogs.
In addition to just syntax highlighting it would also be great to have the some of the shortcuts like Visual Assist offers, like easily finding files in your solution/project, or switching between .h/.cpp files in C++. I also really like how IntelliJ IDEA's IDE takes you to a definition if you hold CTRL and click on a symbol.
I'd prefer something free or cheap, but I'm willing to pay for something if it's worth it.
And just to provide some background, I must use VS2010 because I'm developing a game engine in XNA 4.0, and it only works with Visual Studio. Otherwise I would definitely be open to suggestions of just using an IDE with more options, like IntelliJ IDEA or Eclipse.
The answer to this is in the comment by Cody Gray:
The Express version doesn't support extensions
Related
Recent version of Visual Studio added AI-assisted IntelliSense. See below image the star-marked items.
Many times this AI-assisted IntelliSense works great. ReShaper's suggestion system is more powerful in general and I always stick to it. My question is can I have Microsoft AI-assisted IntelliSense in ReSharper's suggestion system?
My question is can I have Microsoft AI-assisted IntelliSense in
ReSharper's suggestion system?
I am afraid that you cannot get your answer as your expected.
Assisted IntelliSense is from Visual Studio IntelliCode and is a part of Viusal Studio Intellisnese.
However, Resharper is a third-party extension and its Intellisense will inherit, overwrite Visual Studio Intellisense and then uses its own features.
In fact, it is not compatible with Visual Studio Intellisense. You can check this document. Besides, someone has reproted a similar issue.
So in use, you can only use one of them(Visual Studio Intellisense and Resharper Intellisense), but not use them all at the same time.
As a suggestion, if you're using VS2019, try switching between them(Extensions-->Resharper-->Options-->Environment-->Intellisense-->General) which this is the only better solution and thanks for Resharper has retained the option to use Visual Studio Intellisense.
In addition, if you still want this feature and use both of them at the same time, you should contact with Resharper's support team and hope that they will give you a satisfactory answer.
Visual C++ 2010 has some sort of weird syntax highlighting issue when it comes to tab characters inside comments, and I know this is a trivial issues, but it's driving me crazy. I'm going to have to show you some screenshots so you will understand what I mean...
This is in Visual C++ 2010 Express
Same thing pasted in Visual C++ 2008 Express
I was able to reproduce this in Visual Studio 2010 and the 2011 preview.
To reproduce:
Tools->Options->Fonts And Colours->Comments
Item Background -> Purple/Red/Blue/Anything
The only solution was to change the back colour of all text (Plain Text), which I don't think you wanted to do or to go back to 2008 Express
For personal projects I cannot use my work-licence of Visual Studio Professional at home.
Visual Studio Express just seem less appealing than the professional edition, what are my alternatives except notepad?
MonoDevelop and SharpDevelop are only two options, though even the Express edition of Visual Studio seems to have more features (and is more familiar to those using the Pro/Ultimate editions).
A number of programming text editors have C# syntax highlighting and you can invoke the compiler with key bindings (that you will need to configure yourself), though a dedicated IDE would make a better experience. Notepad++ is one such editor.
Notepad++? :)
More seriously though, there are free C# IDE's out there, such as SharpDevelop however I have always preferred Visual Studio myself.
One open source alternative is SharpDevelop.
Edit: And as Kyle pointed out, I too prefer Visual Studio above anything else.
When I open a Ruby file (*.rb) inside Visual Studio, it reads like a regular text file - with no syntax highlighting on language keywords.
Is there any way to set this up in Visual Studio?
Update: No, I don't use Visual Studio for Ruby development - I use Netbeans. But I would like to open a Ruby file in Visual Studio and see the proper highlighting.
There is a Ruby plugin for Visual Studio by Sapphire Steel Software, called Ruby in Steel.
There might be a plugin in Visual Studio, that may do that.
Use Netbeans, Textmate, jEdit, Eclipse for Ruby development, they are great IDEs.
( I am wondering why are you doing ruby development in Visual Studio, well you may have your reasons :) )
I'm not entirely sure you can do it for free without the Ruby in Steel add-in.
If you're not completely happy with Visual Studio, perhaps you can use a text editor with syntax highlighting plugins freely available. I know Notepad++ has this feature.
How can I highlight the active line in Visual Studio 2005 and/or 2008? I would like the current line to be highlighted as other IDE's and text editors do, such as Eclipse and UltraEdit. ReSharper can do this, but it comes at additional costs.
SlickEdit Gadgets have a free "line ruler" gadget that does this.
Upgrade to Visual Studio 2010 with the Productivity Power Tools extension. I know--doesn't answer the question; then again, this wasn't an option when the question was written. :)
You can't do it out-of-the-box
Using resharper or another addin that has this feature is your only option.