Visual Studio 2010: any way to make font settings solution dependent? - visual-studio-2010

I know how to set the font in Options -> Fonts and Colors. It would be nice to be able to have font settings per solution so that 1 solution could be set to Monaco and another one set to Consolas for example.
Why? Sometimes when you have several solutions open, particularly when you have dragged code windows onto multiple screens, it would be a nice tip-off to instantly see which project you are editing by seeing the different font.

Here's a question/answer on SO which might be the solution for you.

Related

Visual Studio 2022: Bold font in the entire editor

I downloaded & installed Visual Studios 2022. After creating a new project, and playing with the IDE for some time, I noticed that my font size was set to bold everywhere in the editor. Keywords, operators, punctuation, strings, variables, functions, classes, everything! Obviously I tried to change the size of the font, but it always reverts back to being bold.
Did I do something to cause this? How can I change it to not use bold font everywhere?
This is due to Microsoft changing the default font in Visual Studio 2022 from Consolas to Cascadia Code: a font which is designed to make text easier to read for people with disabilities like Character Dysmorphia or Dyslexia. You can change this back to "Consolas", the VS 2019 font by going to
Tools > Options > Environment > Fonts and Colors > "Show settings for: Text Edit" > Font: "Consolas"
SO THERE ARE A COUPLE OF ISSUES THAT CAUSE THE FONT TO RENDER OVERLY BOLD
I know that this answer isn't as popular as the other answer, but there was more to this problem than just changing the font. Originally, I tried changing the font, and it didn't work. It turned out, I had somehow turned on an option called "Windows High Contrast" which renders the font as an "ANSI Standardized Terminal Emulators" where there is an option of font that is not only more saturated & brighter, but bolder as well. Only then did changing the font back to the Original Microsoft Consoles font provide the experience I had expected.
Even Here the Story Doesn't End
I later found out about a feature called Power-lines, which is a really awesome looking feature, and provides a great command-line experience. And Cascadia Code supports Power-lines, Consoles does not.
Also I have to read code in a foreign language occasionally, and Slavic/Asian Languages render very nicely in Cascadia Code. So after over 6 months of grappling with fonts. I found that Cascadia Code actually has a variable font-weight, such that 300 and 400 are valid weights, but so 350, or 565 (too bold).
So for me, what worked, was to change Cascadia Codes weight to 350. Its actually kind of cool to be able to pick a font's boldness using a dynamic weight, rather than being restricted to increments of 100.
Tools
Options
Environment
Fonts and Colors
Text Edit
Font Weight: 350
Image Showing Windows Terminal w/ Power Lines Support

VS2019 Tools -> Options -> Font and Colors never saved

In Visual Studio 2019 CE I try to change the font size for Text Editor.
I go to Tools -> Options -> Envirounment -> Fonts and Colors, change font size and click OK.
Font size changed and I can work.
After I close and open VS2019 these settings lost and again set to defaults.
What can be the problem? How to permanently solve it?
This might be an issue in Visual Studio 2019 application, see a similar problem discussed here.
And here's a workaround from the same thread, but not an official fix from MS.
I was experiencing almost the same issues: everything was using the
"general" defaults rather than the c# defaults (which I wanted). I set
to the c# defaults but they wouldn’t save upon reopening vs. However,
any font changes remained after reopening and any colour changes
remained - for example, I set plaintext - background to "black" rather
than "default" - which saved. I then tried switching the font colour
to white, and all the default c# colour options saved.

How to disable font smoothing in Visual Studio editor?

How can I disable the font smoothing in the text editor of Visual Studio? On some machines I use, this works, but, not in most of them.
The text in the editor on the left is not really sharp. But the font in Windows is.
There is an extension called Text Sharp that allows you to completely disable font smoothing (ClearType) for Visual Studio:
https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/7aafa2ea-8c54-4da8-922e-d26bf018514d
I'm using this combined with the Source Code Pro font for very readable code.
Well, the characters are at least readable. The code itself may be a different story. :)
In Visual Studio 2019 v16.5.4 (possibly lower), there is a new feature under the Text Editor -> Advanced settings called "Text rendering method". This appears to be defaulted to "ClearType" upon installation. On my machine, I've disabled ClearType at the OS level, yet after a fresh install/update, noticed that my fonts were being smoothed.
Simply switch this setting to "Aliased" to get pixel-perfect font rendering back.
Again, this assumes you have already disabled ClearType at the system level. I am unsure if VS settings would ignore/override the system-level ClearType settings or not.
In my case the problem was that I had the text size to 120%, I just change it to 100%.
Is an option located in Display Settings above the Resolution selector. It says:
"Change the size of the text, apps, and other items"
set the value to:
100% (Recommended)
This happened to me when I added a new LCD monitor to my setup.
According to blogs.msdn.com and this post on SuperUser, you may have to disable it in many places, but for VStudio two are enough:
Control Panel > Display > Adjust ClearType Text
Control Panel > System > Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows > Visual Effects > Smooth edges of screen fonts
Don't use Consolas as it always uses ClearType, as Alex K. noted in the comments.
Prefer Lucida Console which is a fixed font (they are bold in VStudio's font list in Tools > Options > Environment > Fonts and Colors) and appears not to suffer from the effects of ClearType or smoothed edges.
For those willing to disable anti-aliasing/smooth edges/cleartype on VS Code as of today, there's no official option inside the VS Code program to do it. Instead, I have found this method that works for me, and it's thanks to this article: https://medium.com/kasun-kodagoda/fix-text-becomes-blurry-when-vs-code-application-loses-focus-issue-on-windows-d95697b2f927
Here are the steps:
<img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/L2i9S.png" alt="..." />
Disable anti-aliasing VSCode Image:
Right click on VS Code program and go to Proprieties.
In the "target" section of the app, add the following lines: --disable-gpu --enable-use-zoom-for-dsf
Apply the changes and that's it.
I hope it's useful.
For me it helped to switch to "Consolas" font and then back to "Courier New" in Tools->Options->Environment->Fonts and Colors. Don't forget to press "OK" after switching to Consolas.

How do I change the colours used in Resharper's preview windows?

I'm using a dark theme in visual studio 2010, and have just set up Resharper's colours to fit that.
However, when I now use either the Inspection Results preview or the Find Usages preview, it has picked up the dark background colour setting but none of the other colour settings. This makes it rather difficult to read, black on dark gray!
I have looked through the Resharper section of the visual studio colour settings, but I can't find one for the background of a preview window specifically, has anyone else found out how to change this please?
(Edit: I have no problem with setting just the background colour back to light gray/white, especially if it's not going to pick up the other colours, so I'm clarifying that even a fairly complicated method of setting just this one colour would be fine.)
I was getting an all-white after changing to a dark theme in the Find Results but change the follow and worked for me.
Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Fonts and Colors -> Definition Window Background
If you're using VS2012, try switching to VS's built-in Dark theme to fix this problem.

What are your most-recommended Visual Studio preferences? [closed]

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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

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