Anytime my cursor is on a symbol or keyword VS2013 (or some plugin i have) highlights all matches of those instances:
I don't mind the highlighting; however, this exact color is annoying with the sons-of-obsidian theme (or any dark background).
I would love to know which setting under Tools->Options->Fonts and Colors controls this so that i can fix it... (As far as I can tell, none of the options adjust it, which makes me think it could be one of the plugins i have...
Plugins:
Resharper 8.2 (does adjust colors, but none of the settings I've changed worked)
Nuget Package Manager (shouldn't adjust colors)
MVC 5 Scaffolding (shouldn't adjust colors)
Nancy.Templates (shouldn't adjust colors)
Puppet Plugin (shouldn't adjust colors)
Visual F# (shouldn't adjust colors)
This is built in functionality provided by Visual Studio. To turn it off click on Tools > Options > Text Editor > C# > Advanced and turn off Highlight references to symbol under cursor
If you only want to change the colors you can do this by Tools > Options > Environment > Fonts and Colors and in the Display Items list search for Highlighted Reference.
I was wrong, it was not the stupid VS2013 Update 2 RC, it seems to have been the "Puppet" plugin I had installed, I must've disabled it and not restarted visual studio until removing the update 2 RC, This is the setting that took me forever to find.... I glossed over it because i'm in a C# file and not a puppet file.
I would guess this is a resharper setting. Unfortunately, there's so many different settings for various types of highlighting, I can't figure out which is which. Have you tried this modified version of Sons of Obsidian?
I had the exact same problem in 2023. To turn off the highlihgting alltogether, go to ReSharper settings > code inspection > settings > uncheck 'highlight usages of the element under the cursor'.
Alternatively, the highlight color can be changed by going to the VS Options > Environment > Fonts and Colors and finding the entry in the list called: 'ReSharper Usage of element under cursor'.
I'm not sure what extension is painting the "Comment Bubbles" seen in this screenshot.
I've gone through the extensions that I knowingly installed and do not see an option to turn it off. Either it's coming from an extension I don't know about, or it's an option in one of the ones I looked at but missed. Any help would be appreciated.
It's devExpress. Go to DevExpress-> Options
Expand Editor -> Painting and then go to Comment Painter. Uncheck enabled.
When I go to Options > Fonts and Colors, some color options like User Types are missing.
Does anyone know why this would be?
Edit:
I also don't see the image in the About dialog. The one that's supposed to be at the top of the dialog like a banner.
Make sure "show all settings" is checked (?) . I cold see it in my pro edition. Try resetting the settings : go to Tools -> import and export settings - > reset all settings
alt text http://shobankr.googlepages.com/untitled.JPG
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There are so many little options and settings within Microsoft Visual Studio. Which adjustments do you recommend to others?
Line Numbers
Tools > Options
Text Editor > All Languages > General
Display: Line Numbers
Environment->General->Animate environment tools => OFF.
Speeds UI responsiveness by 82%.
I've never found dynamic help to be either dynamic or helpful, and just tends to slow visual studio down, so using regedit:
registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Visual Studio\x.x\Dynamic Help
value:
Never Show DH on F1 = yes
I'm also keen on setting the following in Options->Projects and Solutions:
Show Output window when build starts - checked
(IMHO easiest way to spot build errors)
Track Active Item in Solution Explorer - unchecked
(stops every project ending up fully expanded in Solution Explorer)
Gotta have the tab indention set up right.
Also, Consolas & Color Themed - white backgrounds hurt my eyes
Option Strict On
Tools > Options
Projects and Solutions > VB Defaults
Default project settings: Option Strict: On
Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Keyboard
Setup a shortcut to close the active document. Ctrl+Alt+W in my case.
Personally i hate that VS defaults to "Tab to Spaces" when you are developing in C#. This is so awkward to work with and unnecessary.
Yes, i know there are issues with Tabs but honestly, did any of you ever encounter them coding in C# on Windows?
Several have mentioned custom keybindings. Here are handy default keybinding reference posters…
Microsoft Visual Basic Default Keybindings reference poster
A high quality, print-ready PDF
containing the useful keybindings for
developers that choose the Visual
Basic developer profile in Visual
Studio 2008 or use Visual Basic
Express.
Microsoft Visual C# Default Keybindings reference poster
Visual C# in Visual Studio 2008 and
Visual C# 2008 Express Edition Wall
chart showing useful keyboard
shortcuts for Visual C# programming
language.
I like Microsoft's instructions:
Download and extract PDF
Send to favorite full color printer/copier
Hang on wall
Code
Smile
Set the active document you're working on to display in the solution explorer. I've seen a lot of people hunting for their current doc if the project gets too big.
Tools -> Options.
Make sure show all settings is checked.
Click on Projects and Solutions.
Enable the Track Active Item in Explorer checkbox.
alt text http://img370.imageshack.us/img370/4821/trackactivedocumentqv2.gif
Environment => General => Recent files
24 items shown in Window menu
24 items shown in recently used lists
Environment => General
Show status bar ON
Animate environment tools OFF
Prevent Visual Studio from renaming pasted controls
How do I prevent Visual Studio from renaming my controls?
Window Layouts
This really isn't a setting but something I always do is back up my settings via Tools > Import and Export Settings.
I make sure to back up my window layouts for both single and multiple monitors. It saves frustration when moving from my multi-monitor setup to a single monitor for a presentation.
Not to mention, it makes it easy to get up and running on a new PC.
Visible white space. (Edit -> Advanced -> View White Space)
The default color is too strong. I immediately change it to silver. (Tools -> Options -> Fonts and Colors -> Visible White Space).
On some displays, even silver is too strong, and I create a "light silver".
I'm somewhat surprised to be the first person recommending Visual Studio Hacks for a lot of suggestions of this variety
Fixedsys Font
Tools > Options
Environment > Fonts and Colors
Font: Fixedsys
Always show solution
Tools > Options
Projects and Solutions
Always show solution
Check out this thread for the Color theme options for Visual Studio
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/141371/which-visual-studio-color-theme
And consolas is my favourite font
This applies to winform projects.
Instead of opening the form in design mode by default, you can configure VS to open the code editor instead. This is configured by right-clicking on a form in the solution explorer and choosing the "Open with" option. This gives you a dialog that allows you to specify the default option when double-clicking on a file.
In a control's properties, setting GenerateMembers to false for items you don't need (labels, etc). It's not a specifically Visual-Studio thing, more related to the platform, but mixed with the contextual list of objects and functions, it just clears up so much clutter.
When designing a form:
View > Tab Order
Allows you you specify and control your TabIndexes easily (much more so than setting them by hand!)
Source View
Tools > Options
HTML Designer > General
Start pages in: Source View
Its all about Resharper ;) Gives you tons of shortcuts which are so useful I can no longer work without them. I don't get on with the intellisense though, so I've turned that off.
This is incredibly useful, allows you to write underscores with the space bar when writing long test method names.
Un-Bold Brace Matching
Tools > Options
Environment > Fonts and Colors
Display items: Brace Matching (Hilight)
uncheck Bold
Find and Replace window’s "Search Hidden Text" checkbox.
It's not really a preference but it is indispensable. It sure is frustrating when you don’t notice that it "magically" unchecked itself.
Besides, Line Numbers, the first thing I always do in a newly-installed IDE is set the Edit.GoToDefinition keyboard shortcut.
Tools > Options > Keyboard
As some of you know the RockScroll Visual Studio plugin is pretty darn awesome. It turns your scrollbar into a mini preview of your code and offers the Eclipse like functionality of highlighting any word that you doubleclick in your code.
The problem is the author of RockScroll chose a color that is VERY difficult to see and almost defeats the purpose of such a cool and very useful feature.
So my question is. Is it possible to customize the color or specify your own somehow?
Stay tuned because I answered my own question and found a way!
You can set it by going to
Tools > Options > Environment > Fonts and Colors > rockscroll
Rockscroll.dll is version 2.1.0.0 (05/09/2008)
I figured out a way to accomplish this by hex-editing the rockscroll .dll
By default RockScroll uses a very light purple, bluish color: F5E7FE.
Open up your favorite HexEditor.
Open the RockScroll.dll in your Program Files\RockScroll directory (back it up first!)
Search for the color specified above and remember to search using the proper byte-order.
I happened to find that color sequence on line: 00006FDC
Enter a new color of choice...I chose a more prominent yellow/gold color: E8E8FF
Save the file and close it then restart Visual Studio and if you managed to do this correctly Visual Studio will start with no complaints.
Open up some code and double click a word...you should have the new color available immediately.
Cheers!
Disclaimer: This is considered a hack so do this at your own risk!!!
Use MetalScroll instead!
It does everything and more that RockScroll does and is easily configurable.