I love dark themes in my development environments but can't find a way to make the resources editor (particularly strings) of Visual Studio dark too. My VS version is 2015 Professional.
Here's how I see it:
while the rest of the UI looks like this:
There is an extension for the Visual Studio 2015 Enterprise that changes the theme color of every element of the IDE. Just search themes and you get a lot of extensions and 90% of them work, you can even set up some transparent background for your coding environment and even add some music(mostly trance) that changes and helps you concentrate while coding.
If you inspect the resx editor using inspect.exe tool, you can see its a Winforms data grid view. It does not honor WPF styles. According to my understanding VS is built using WPF changes the themes via WPF style feature.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.datagridview(v=vs.110).aspx
Visual Studio Color Theme Editor is an excellent extension for Visual Studio 2010 that can be used to try and apply different themes on the IDE. The theme only changes the chrome or the windowing area of the IDE.
To change the display of code one still has to play around with the settings in the Fonts and Colors dialog or import settings from a .vssettings file. (A variety of styles are available at StudioStyles).
All editors now allow the programmer to try or switch between different styles on the code with a click (like the gorgeous Sublime Text). Is there a Visual Studio extension or external tool that makes it easy to apply and play around with different styles? If not, is there some trick to try or switch between different styles with ease? I find that going through the Import Settings dialog is quite onerous.
Visual Studio 2012 Color Theme Editor extension now allows (from v2.3) to change Font colors using styles (include your own styles). Exactly what do you need.
Version history
2.3 Added support for merging Fonts & Colors customizations with a theme
Update to Visual Studio 2012 and you be able to use either Light or Dark theme. What's is really cool.
Other good suggestion is to check http://studiostyl.es/ - This website provide many variations of color and fonts to use with your Visual Studio (but by now that compatibility is just with vs2005, vs2008 and vs2010)
I'm quite new to ASP.NET and Visual Studio. I'm working on an old project, is it possible for me to turn on HTML 5 semantic markup? I've not been able to find the option, I would have expected the option here! :
I'm using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate
The following is a screenshot of the new project dialog.
Link to a similar topic containing a variety of answers:
Is it possible to add HTML5 validation to Visual Studio?
Download link for the VS 2010 update which gives HTML5 validation:
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/a15c3ce9-f58f-42b7-8668-53f6cdc2cd83
Answer to my question:
Install the update, and when developing HTML:
Right click > Formatting and Validation > Validation > Target: HTML5.
Alternatively you can select HTML5 from the drop down above the text area, next to the 'Check page for accessibility button'.
how well can LightSwitch work together with Blend? I saw in some videos that you can use custom Silverlight control in LS and naturally I can create them with Blend.
But can Blend in itself be used to customize the screens of a LightSwitch application? It seems LS doesn't use Xaml but puts all screen in an application.lsml file which is invalid for Blend. Is there support coming here?
Thanks in advance.
No. You will never be able to customize the LightSwitch 'Screens' in Blend, because as you have seen, they live inside the application.lsml file. If you build a Shell Extension, you could use Blend to do the basic layout, but most of the work is in C# or VB. For a Theme Extension, you could certainly use Blend to edit the Theme Visusl Pallette Resource Dictionary. See this link for the a cookbook guide to building the various types of LightSwitch Extensions: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/lightswitch/archive/2011/03/16/lightswitch-beta-2-extensibility-cookbook.aspx. There is also now an accompanying Visual Studio project template available for Beta 2.
LightSwitch works fine with Expression Blend, but only for custom Silverlight controls (Expression Blend will throw an error that it can't load any LightSwitch projects that are part of the solution, but it will load any Silverlight control projects).
You cannot edit any of the automatic LightSwitch UI, but you do not have to use any of the standard LightSwitch UI if you need changes.
I would recommend creating Silverlight custom controls not LightSwitch extensions, the difference is that a control extension has a design-time experience in Visual Studio and is MUCH harder to create (Silverlight custom controls are actually very easy to create).
See this article for an example:
http://lightswitchhelpwebsite.com/Blog/tabid/61/EntryId/2/Creating-A-LightSwitch-Custom-Silverlight-Control.aspx
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What are your recommended extensions for Visual Studio 2010?
(Please indicate if its free or not And also its purpose / function too)
Free:
VsCommandBudy - Extend VS with external commands where really need them (Free)
PowerCommands - useful extensions for the Visual Studio 2010 adding additional functionality to various areas of the IDE.
DevExpress CodeRush Xpress - Coding assistance, Intellisense navigation,etc.
AnkhSVN - Subversion Support for Visual Studio.
Ghost Doc - Simplify your XML Comments.
Visual Studio Color Theme Editor - make your VS2010 look pretty with themes.
VsVim - VIM emulation layer for Visual Studio.
DPack - FREE collection of Microsoft Visual Studio tools.
VSFileNav - fast searcher with wildcards + camel case searches.
Sonic file finder - fast and convenient search.
AllMargins
tangible T4 Editor plus modeling tools for VS2010 adds IntelliSense and Syntax Coloring to T4 Text Templates
Word Wrap with Auto-Indent
Indentation Matcher Extension
Structure Adornment
BlockTagger
BlockTaggerImpl
SettingsStore
SettingsStoreImpl
Source Outliner - not available on this link.
Triple Click - Makes triple click select an entire line.
ItalicComments
Go To Definition - Make ctrl+click perform a "Go To Definition" on the identifier under the cursor
Spell Checker - not available on this link.
Remove and Sort Using - Adds a context menu entry to Solution Explorer that sorts and removes using statements on every file in the solution, project, or on the individual file.
Format Document - Adds a context menu entry to Solution Explorer and the code window that executes the Edit-Advance-Format Document command on every file in the solution, project, or current code window.
Open Folder in Windows Explorer - Extends the Open Folder in Windows Explorer context menu option to the code editor and to all files in solution explorer.
Find Results Highlighter - Highlights the search text in the find results windows.
Regular Expressions Margin - A margin which exposes .Net Regular Expressions search and replace capabilities on a given code window.
VSCommands - not available on this link.
HelpViewerKeywordIndex - Visual Studio Extension for the Microsoft Help Viewer
StyleCop - StyleCop analyzes C# source code to enforce a set of best practice style and consistency rules.
Extension Analyzer - Extension Analyzer helps debug issues with VSIX Components, Visual Studio Packages, PkgDef Files and MEF Components.
CodeCompare - Code Compare is an advanced file and folder comparison tool. This programming languages oriented diff tool can be used as a Visual Studio add-in and as a standalone application.
Team Founder Server Power Tools - not available on this link
VS10x Selection Popup - not available on this link
Color Picker Completion - not available on this link
Numbered Bookmarks - Numbered Bookmarks allows users to create and recall bookmarks by using numbers. User can create 10 bookmarks (starting from 0 to 9).
Mouse Zoom - Mouse zoom at the mouse's cursor instead of at the top of the visible document. See VS options...
Visual Studio 2010 Pro Power Tools - A set of extensions to Visual Studio Professional (and above) which improves developer productivity.
JSEnhancements - provides outlining and matching braces highlighting features for Visual Studio JavaScript editor; provides fantastic #region collapsing in JS and CSS files, making long files much easier to handle;
Code Contracts Editor Extensions - Displays Code Contracts (when editing C#) in code, Intellisense, and in metadata files.
WoVS Quick Add Reference - Add missing assembly references right from the code editor
JScript Editor Extensions -
Align By
T4 Editor
Quick Open File for Visual Studio 2010 - quick opening any solution file
CleanProject - Cleans Visual Studio Solutions
PhatStudio - fast file navigation and quickly opening files
VsVim - Vim style keyboard shorcuts
Chutzpah - Open source JavaScript test runner
I Hate #Regions - makes expanded regions less disturbing by making the font smaller
Not Free:
Resharper
Visual Assist X
JustCode
ViEmu
CodeRush with Refactor! Pro
VisualSVN
VS10x Code Map - displays a graphical nested representation of the current editor window code
VS10x Editor View Enhancer
NuGet
NuGet (formerly NuPack) is a free, open source developer focused package management system for the .NET platform intent on simplifying the process of incorporating third party libraries into a .NET application during development.
PowerCommands (free)
AnkhSVN (free)
Even if you use other SVN shells outside VS (like TortoiseSVN), I recommend to install this Source Control Provider to automatically keep track of file renames, deletions and the like.
Visual Assist X(not free)
Ghost Doc (Free)
It takes a while to configure it properly, but it can be quite useful.
From my blog post (all free):
Word Wrap with Auto-Indent
Indentation Matcher Extension
Structure Adornment
This also installs the following extensions:
BlockTagger
BlockTaggerImpl
SettingsStore
SettingsStoreImpl
Source Outliner
Triple Click
ItalicComments
Go To Definition
Spell Checker
Remove and Sort Using
Format Document
Open Folder in Windows Explorer
Find Results Highlighter
Regular Expressions Margin
VSCommands
HelpViewerKeywordIndex
StyleCop
Visual Studio Color Theme Editor
PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2010
Extension Analyzer
CodeCompare
Team Founder Server Power Tools
VS10x Selection Popup
Color Picker Completion
Numbered Bookmarks
DevExpress CodeRush/Refactor! Pro (not free, $249.99)
It's way better than Resharper (which by the way always slowed down my VS to a crawl), it works with C# and VB.NET (including refactoring) and the support and community is excellent. Worth the price tag. And yes, it does support 2010 (in RC at the time of this writing).
Visual Studio Color Theme Editor (free)
I can't code unless my VS2010 has a StackOverflow-like theme.
VisualSVN (not-free)
I personally prefer this over AnkhSVN since its not an SCC provider and doesn't add extra files to my repository.
VisualHG is a Mercurial Source control plugin that drives TortoiseHG from VS. I'm a big fan of Mercurial & DVCS. VisualHG makes it nice n integrated. Git fans - I'm not asking for a flame war. Hg is just my brand.
VSCommands is simply one of the best FREE plugins ot there!
(visual studio gallery link)
DevExpress CodeRush Xpress (free)
tangible T4 Editor plus modeling tools for VS2010 adds IntelliSense and Syntax Coloring to T4 Text Templates (Free)
If you are a Vim aficionado...
VsVim - free
ViEmu - not free (also not yet released)
CodeMaid seems to be pretty useful - it AutoFormats on save which saves a lot of time between developers and code-diffs. (Are there other tools that can use the VS AutoFormat document?)
VS10x Code Map
That is very cool. Easy jumping to property, method. And easy expand collapse region and more.
ReSharper (not-free)
World of VS Default Browser Switcher for easily switching browser in web projects.
Code Contracts Editor Extensions, a free extension which provides information about inherited contracts for the method you're currently working on, and a list of contracts for any methods that you're calling. Unfortunately, the latter feature conflicts with Resharper, but the former still works fine.
RockScroll (free) - Double-click on a word/symbol highlights all occurrences of that word/symbol. Also replaces the scroll bar with a preview of your code, with edit spots and "all occurences" lines highlighted.
Example of use: want to see whether a variable is used anywhere else in current source file? Double-click variable, look at scroll bar for any red highlights.
AtomineerUtils Pro (not free, $9.99 USD) is, in my opinion, better than Ghost Doc. But, just like Ghost Doc or any automatic documentation generator, the generated documentation is meant to be edited to be of any real value.
devColor (Free)
Small tool which underlines hex colors in stylesheets with the correct color. I really like how it integrates into the editor.
CleanProject - Cleans Visual Studio Solutions
How many times have you wanted to send a project to a friend or upload
it to a web site like MSDN Code Gallery only to find that your zip
file has lots of stuff that you don't need to send in it making the
file larger than it needs to be.
bin folder obj folder TestResults folder Resharper folders And then if
you forget about removing Source Control bindings whoever gets your
project will be prompted about that. As someone who does this process
a great deal I decided to share with you my code for cleaning a
project.
I can't live without DPack - especially when working on large projects, makes navigating between files and members much easier. And it's free.
Favorite shortucts:
Alt+U : file browser, filters files as you type
Alt+G : code browser, filters all members as you type
Alt+M : code browser, filters methods in the current file as you type
...and so on. Much easier for me then finding my way around Project Explorer.
Vingy (Free)
Vingy 1.0 is simple, but effective add in for Visual Studio 2010 so that you can search the web in a non intrusive way, and can filter results based on sources.
Vingy http://lh4.ggpht.com/__Mw4iY-4nuY/TKic0LcfKgI/AAAAAAAAA7s/OR82RFQFSU8/s1600-h/image%5B14%5D.png
You can bring up Vingy either by clicking View->Other Windows –> Vingy Search Window from the Visual Studio IDE, or just by high lighting some text in the document and then clicking Tools –> Search Selected Text (Ctrl + 1).
Searching with Vingy is pretty straight forward. You can initiate a Search in two ways.
By typing the text in the Vingy search box and pressing ‘Enter’ or by clicking the ‘Go’ button
By highlighting some text in the editor when you type in Visual Studio, and then pressing Ctrl + 1
This is my list of extensions.
The list on this is pretty comprehensive, so I spent sometime to find the extensions that I need. Here is the snapshot. Hope it will help someone.
I tried installing Codemaid, and it appeared to be a nifty addon, but my Visual Studio response became very slow. Felt like some threads were doing some work all the time when Codemaid was on.
So uninstalling for now.
VSFileNav - (Free) A Find File in Solution tool (cross between SonicFileFinder and Resharper). Lightweight, easy to use and fast (I got sick of the huge startup time with Sonic).
Disclaimer : I wrote this tool.
Plugin to quickly go to any file in solution
Sonic file finder (free)
Fast switching between .h and .cpp file
Macro available here (free)
And that's it =)
WoVS Quick Add Reference
The “Quick Add Reference” extension augments the smart tag that VS shows for unrecognized types giving you a chance to add the corresponding assembly reference for that type plus corresponding “using” clause if needed in a single shot.