In Eclipse, there's a JavaDoc View which would display the JavaDoc of whatever the current or last selected element was. I'm trying to find something similar for C# in Visual Studio 2013, but I'm not seeing anything like is. Does it exist? If so how do I activate it?
Thanks!
There are many applications that can generate MSDN style documentation from your XML comments. Here are a few I have used and they work well
VSdocman:
http://www.helixoft.com/vsdocman/overview.html
SandCastle
http://sandcastle.codeplex.com
I found what I was looking for. In Visual Studio, one would use the "Object Browser" to get something similar to the JavaDoc view. To get to it, View->Object Browser.
It does behave differently than Eclipse's JavaDoc view. Rather than tying the documentation to the cursor in the edit view, the Object Browser has a search box where one could search for the object they wish to view documentation on.
I have a UserControl and I put some public Methods/Properties in there.
I would like to have that when the user of my UserControl types something and Intellisense opens, that he immediately sees my custom methods created in the UserControl, is that possible somehow by marking the methods/props with kind of attributes?
No, this is not something that can be easily done. Visual Studio will sort the methods/properties alphabetically.
To do what you want, you will need to:
Mark your methods/properties with a custom attribute
Write this custom attribute
Use VS automation to reflect over every type to find this attribute
Reorder the intellisense listing (not sure if this is even possible with VS VBA)
I need to create a from which uses the same ListBox as the one from Collection Editor of Visual Studio (The ListBox under the Members label). Please, explain exactly which WinForms control is this and which of its properties are set?
You can see the control I am asking about under the Members: label of every collection editor form in design time of Visual Studio.
Thank you.
Hopefully this can get you started. There's other (probably better...) samples out there, but this is a basic starter which can help you get the concept:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/9zky1t4k%28VS.90%29.aspx
Quote:
This example shows how to create a
control named ContactCollectionEditor
that implements a custom collection
editor. The example shows how to
specify the exact type of the object
that a page developer can add to the
control's collection property when
using a custom collection editor. You
associate a collection editor with a
collection property (or the type of
the property) by applying the
EditorAttribute to the collection
property of the control.
EDITS corrected terminology from Intellisense to Smart Tag
OK, I readily admit that Intellisense/Smart Tags have spoiled me. I've grown accustomed C# in Visual Studio notifying you to add using import declarations when typing in a class name for a namespace that has not yet been imported. You get the nice little colored underscore which you can hover over or do or do ctrl-dot to get the context menu for adding the import or fully qualifying the namespace.
I've just started playing with F# in VS2010, and I'm not getting that helpful reminder when I reference a system library class. I type WebRequest and the Smart Tag doesn't kick in to tell me I need to add an open System.Net declaration.
Am I missing something? Is there a VS extension available that beefs up F# Smart Tagging?
You're confusing two features here. Intellisense is the feature that helps complete statements and expressions as you type. The squiggle that appears over WebRequest to tell you that you need to add a using / open for System.Net is a smart tag.
F# unfortunately does not implement this particular smart tag in Visual Studio 2010. I don't know of any extension which provides this behavior either.
Question ONE:
I'm still pretty new to .net, but have used Visual Studio for a few recent projects. I'm now working a new project and I was wondering if visual studio had anything built in that would allow you to browse all of the details about a control, etc..
Is MSDN the best place to go for this?
For instance if I wanted to see of all the methods, properties, etc.. Is there anything inside VS?
Question TWO:
Can anyone recommend, books, resources, that deal specificially with Visual Studio? What each window does, etc.. I have used it enough to complete a few projects, but I haven't seen much in the way of exactly what everything does and why.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Use reflector (it's free!) to get in-depth information about classes etc. Visual studio also has a built-in Object Browser.
P.S. Reflector allows you to reverse engineer assemblies as well, allowing you to view the actual code of a class / method.
P.P.S. Google is still a developer's best friend. Need information on a control, search for it on the web. (Which will lead you to MSDN a lot of the times, but will also get you examples and loads of blog entries).
Question ONE:
You can use the Object Browser (menu View\Object Browser) to see a hierarchical list of all known assemblies, classes, interfaces, enums, etc...
This only gives the signature of each item and not the code.
If you want to see the code, use .Net reflector.
You can also use the Object Browser in Visual Studio. There is usually an icon for it at the top (by the Toolbox, Solution Explorer, etc. icons) or you can navigate to it (View -> Object Browser). When it opens, you will see all of the libraries currently referenced (system and third party) on the left hand side. It's hierarchical, so you can start drilling down. There is a search box at the top, if you want to look for a particular class, method or library. That looks at all the system libraries, not just the ones referenced in your current project.
For more help with the object browser, look here.
Q1:
In Visual Studio:
Above the editor there are 2 dropdown lists:
Left: Shows Classes
Right: Shows Class Members
or Click View > Class View: to see all the classes in the whole solution
I had a similar rub when I started using VS after I had done a lot of Java coding. I was used to the Java API documentation to research properties and such.
I found the VS equivalent IMO, here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms229335.aspx
You can browse every class method, property, constructor, etc. right there. Their examples are decent.
In response to question 1, what I usually do is highlight the bit of framework code I'm interested in and hit F1 to bring up the documentation. For example:
Button myButton = new Button();
If you highlight the first Button and hit F1, you'll get an overview on Buttons in Windows Forms. If you highlight Button() and hit F1 you'll get the documentation on the Button class constructor.
In response to question 2, I'm not sure a book is the answer. I think reading a book on all the components of Visual Studio might be overkill. I'd say to keep on hacking away at your projects and page-fault information in via MSDN, Google, and StackOverflow as you need it. As with any IDE and framework, the more you use it the better you'll get at navigating and learning the ins and outs.