Does anyone know of a Visual Studio plugin for viewing PowerPoint slide shows in a pane in Visual Studio? I've been working through a tutorial and I'm annoyed with alt-tabbing between the two applications (I prefer giving Visual Studio the full screen).
Clarification:
I do have dual screens at work, and a 30" display at home, but in my doubtless fussy opinion, opening and arranging multiple windows is much less convenient then having the info in a pane in the IDE for this particular task. There is also the matter being able to cut and paste code from the tutorial into the edit window without having to alt-tab. I'd like something like the internal web browser pane, or in-place help panes in Eclipse.
I very much doubt there would be a VS plug-in for displaying PowerPoint slide shows. I can't imagine very many cases where this would be useful. I never use PowerPoint when doing development work.
Perhaps the only situation where it might be useful is in training, as you've described. But honestly, my recommendation would be to add a second monitor to your computer. Then you can keep Visual Studio maximized on your primary screen, while displaying the PowerPoint slides on the secondary monitor.
I suspect that you'll find a dual-screen setup will not only be useful while you're learning Visual Studio, but continue to pay dividends as you begin working in Visual Studio, as well. The productivity boost of multiple screens is well documented around the web, and my own experience is that I can hardly work without a minimum of 2 screens anymore.
This is really a no-brainer for any developer who values his or her time. Now more than ever, since:
Most mainstream, inexpensive video cards tend to come with two VGA ports (aka "dual head") standard.
The price of less bulky 17" and 19" LCDs are quite reasonable.
Windows XP has mature multiple monitor support; it's been a standard out of box win32 feature since Windows 98.
The multiple monitor support is very good in both Windows XP and Windows 7 (I experienced some minor irritations under Windows Vista, but not nearly enough to be discouraging). And you don't have to buy a giant secondary screen (or even primary screen). Two 17" or 19" monitors will generally be more productive than one large 22" or 24" screen.
Related
I'm trying to make VS Code editor to look exactly like Visual Studio. I made sure the font settings are exactly the same, however text still renders differently in VS Code (it seems "lighter").
Is there any way to fix this issue?
In the image below the top text is copied from Visual Studio while the bottom one is copied from VS code.
I know the difference is subtle but is still pretty noticeable.
Font rendering in VSCode has been a reoccurring issue throughout a good portion of the editors life time. Font rendering, especially in portable GUI's, is affected by several different layers, for example:
Your Graphics Card can affect the way font is rendered (you can try adjusting the graphic cards settings manually).
Your Monitor, obviously, affects rendering. In fact your monitor has a huge impact. (Try playing with your Monitor's Settings)
The color settings that are offered by your OS may have an impact (often times the color settings are the same as the graphic card settings though. Which means you can just use your OS's GUI to adjust your cards settings in some cases (Not on Ubuntu though))_
Somethings are out of your control, like:
VSCode, it is written using Electron v6. Not only does Electron impact font rendering, but when VSCode switched it Version 6 a lot of people reported a decrease in the editors font rendering quality.
VSCode also implements Anti-Aliasing tools, but as far as I can tell, they auto configure, so you have no control over this. These tools are likely to be one of the biggest causes to the difference in rendering you see, between VS IDE & VS CODE. There is a tool however that may give you some control over the Visual Studio side of rendering that I share a link to below. And just as an FYI, the Anti-Aliasing that VSCode uses is called Sub-pixel Rendering, which is something that Visual Studio doesn't implement as far as I can tell.
The Area You Have the Most Control in:
There is ONE tool/thing that you have 100% control over, that also greatly affects font-rendering, and that is the font that you decide to use. When choosing a font, you have the choice of equipping an OTF, or a TTF. In my personal experience, OTF's render better 90% of the time. The difference is in how they are created.
TTF fonts are made using quadratic Beziers.
OTF fonts are made using cubic Beziers.
Links above are the same
Fonts use something called font-hinting
Font hinting. Essentially font-hinting is a list of instructions that dynamically changes the way a font is rendered, by using the rasterized grid background as a parameter. adjust the display of an outline font so that it lines up with a rasterized grid. Choosing a quality font equipped with good hinting is critical for non-blurry readable text.
Many people choose font because like the way they look, or the italic version of the font they use is popular. When choosing a font, it is extremely important to choose, not the coolest one, but the one that renders with the highest quality, and is the easiest for you to read.
Well Rendering Fonts:
Not only are their fonts that render well, with ligature support, but the best rendering fonts are always free IMO. Bellow are Fonts that use font hinting and have top notch rendering abilities.
JetBrains Mono (JetBrain's Font & My Personal Favorite)
Cascadia Code (Microsoft's Programming Font from 2019)
Fira Code (Not that old, but not that new either. Is loved by many.)
Fira Mono (No Ligatures, Different Font than Fira Code)
Consolas (A classic)
Menlo (Another Classic)
The top 4 are at the top of the list because they receive updates ever few months. I don't think Menlo & Consolas receive regular updates, but they aren't left forgotten either, the are updated every year or two.
To finish with as solid of an answer as I can provide:
_"Getting VSCode to render like the Visual Studio IDE, is not something that you will probably get, with 100% satisfaction, getting an exact match with all of the different factors is just an extremely and possibly impossible thing to due. You can probably make the way the two pieces of software render, more a like, not in functionality, but in looks. It would probably help a great deal to make sure that everything that affects rendering is up to date, editor, IDE, fonts, tools, ect... From their you can try different versions, and see if maybe an older version of VSCode rendered in a way that is preferable to you. You should also play with your monitors settings. I have found that I can accomplish a great deal just through the buttons under the face of my monitor. Check Visual Studio for any rendering settings it might have, VSCode doesn't have much available, but maybe Visual Studio IDE does (I haven't used the IDE in 5 years so IDK if it does).
On a final note:
Their is one tool that could help you, I haven't used it, because it isn't for VSCode, it's for Visual Studio, but it might give you more control than you have now. The tool is called..."_
Text Sharp (Click Here to see it in the VS Market Place)
I find everything to be a bit too small for my liking whenever I'm working on my 1080p, 14" laptop and have been trying to find a way to scale up EVERYTHING (text, icons, etc), but somehow the only thing I can find is scaling up the font in the editor or other windows, one by one, inside of Tools->Options->Fonts and Colors.
This has to be possible, right? What you get when hitting [ctrl +]/[ctrl -] in VS Code is essentialy what I'm trying to achieve, except in VSC2019.
Is there any hardware or software that would let me edit text documents and simulate mouse clicks using just a stylus? I want to be able to write programs in Visual Studio using a stylus for keyboard and mouse input. Hardware cost isn't an issue. Thanks.
P.S. I have an wrist RSI that is making typing on a keyboard impossible but I really don't want to end my programming career. I know there are other input methods but this is the one I'd most prefer.
There was a Tablet PC edition of Windows XP that offered stylus support, including handwriting recognition. Since then, tablet functions and handwriting OCR have been baked straight into Windows.
If you're running Vista, 7, 8 or 8.1, you can probably launch it right now. Search for the Tablet PC folder in the Start Menu. In Windows 7, you'll find it under Accessories.
As far as using handwriting OCR in VS is concerned: I would expect you'll need to tune your dictionary to include the names of components, or turn off predictive corrections entirely. Camelcase and autocorrect don't see eye to eye.
I've never found an "ideal" layout for coding in Visual Studio. I have a three-monitor setup, but it seems that the solution explorer/properties/output/errors/whatever panes are always getting in the way or hogging screen space. It's a bit open-ended, sure, but do you have an "ideal" layout with the myriad of floating/dockable/anchored setups for specific windows? For instance, I like to split vertical code panes between two screens, and typically the solution explorer is anchored to the right of the right-most code pane, but that chews up screen real estate that I'd rather have for the code. I was thinking of floating those sorts of things off to another screen.
Apparently VS 2010 will do a LOT more for multi monitor setups. ScottGu went over this at DevConnections 2008, and a few more times, usually wherever he goes.
I got the impression that the MDI or tabbed codefiles might be able to be detached from the IDE, and float/draggable onto another monitor.
As it stands today in VS 2008, Solution Explorer, Immediate Window, etc are detachable and be able to float onto another monitor, separate from the main IDE.
Like many SO people, I'm in front of a computer almost all day. I like having a dark theme for Visual Studio (easier on the eyes), but since the rest of Windows and apps (explorer, dialogs, Outlook), have the full white background, it's even harder to switch between nice dark VS and sunshine bright Windows.
I tried a UXTheme.dll patch but couldn't find any dark themes that worked across Visual Studio and Windows apps in general. Any suggestions?
Edit: To be clear, I'd like no or almost no white. No scrollbars, menus, etc.
I don't think you're going to find a Windows theme that can accomplish your task. Many software applications do not adhere to colors specified in Windows preferences and are not at all customizable--Notepad, for example, is black text on a white background, end of story.
For themes in general, Microsoft has released two official XP themes within the last year that may be worth looking at:
Zune
Embedded
If you are planning on using a modified uxtheme.dll file, you can check out Luna Element Black, which is one I have used for well over a year now.
If you are this passionate about not having white areas visible in some of the programs you use, perhaps you need to find new applications that provide similar features but also offer customization in terms of fonts and colors--for example, using Notepad++ instead of Notepad, which gives you an almost exhaustive amount of customization possibilities.
May be not exactly what you are looking for, but this is a dark color scheme for visual Studio (2005 or 2008) you may use in complement of UXTheme.
Off course, they are other dar color schemes for Visual studio, like this one (Jeff has one also).
But I am not sure there is one tool that applies to all windows, including Visual Studio.