I had been looking for a "variable highlight" feature which can be found in Netbeans or Notepad++.
This means, when I select a variable, the same variable which is being scattered around other place will be highlighted as well. This feature is very valuable, to help me scan the code quickly.
May I know is it possible I can have this feature as well in Visual Studio 2008?
Use ReSharper and you will be able many useful features. This particular one is called highlight usage and is available when pressing Ctrl + Shift + F7. The description is at:
http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/features/navigation_search.html#Highlight_Usages
In Visual Studio 2010 this feature is build-in.
Related
Every time I type an emmet string and press tab visual studio replaces it with just the main element. Then i realized it was preferning the the snippet that it was auto suggesting. Is there a way around this or fix it? I am using Visual Studio 2013 Community edition on windows 7 64bit if that makes any difference
I found the problem, I was using another plugin called Viasafora that colors braces and makes it easier to to see your indentations it had a default option for showing completions ans you type. I had to go turn it off.
I installed Coderush express and I can see that it is installed. (I can see that Camel Case Navigation works). But I can see any other feature works. Based on this page: http://community.devexpress.com/blogs/markmiller/archive/2009/06/25/coderush-xpress-for-c-and-visual-basic-2008.aspx
I cannot see any of these feature to works:
Tab to Next Reference : no effect when I put caret on a variable and press tab ( a tab inserted at the middle of my variable name!)
Highlight All References: pressing ctrl+alt +u add a ascii character to source code.
Quick Navigation: Ctrl +Shift + Q has no effect.
Quick File Navigation : Ctrl +Alt +F brings up F# interactive
Selection Increase and Selection Reduce doesn't work: generate a beep
Declare: ctrl +` has no effect.
and ...
Any idea why this is happening? I am using VS2010.
Presumably due to your using a different version of Visual Studio.
The page you linked to is pretty clear about it being for Visual Studio 2008, but you've included the visual-studio-2010 tag.
CodeRush Xpress fully supports all language features of Visual Basic and C# in Visual Studio 2008.
Edit
Version of Visual Studio wasn't the problem after all.
It appears to just be that the tool makes very little visible change to the Visual Studio user interface, so it looks like it hasn't loaded.
It seems that your installation is corrupt. I would recommend you contact DevExpress Support directly. The support team is better equipped to resolve any issues you face with their products. They offer a very short response time and high qualification. I would also recommend that you reinstall the product.
The features you are asking about, were removed on purpose from VS2010 version of Coderush XPress. More info here:
Experience with Coderush XPress and Visual Studio 2010?
I was used to use RockScroll (or MetalScroll), but when I started to use ReSharper my RockScroll start to show some bugs. Well, this is scope to another discussion https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1089493/is-rockscroll-compatible-with-resharper.
But my problem is related, because now without MetalScroll I can't highlight all occurrences, what I consider very useful in many situations.
Someone have another plugin for VS2010 or for ReSharper that do the same or better?
I think you are looking for "Highlight usages in file" This can be access via Shift+Alt+F11 or Ctrl+Shift+F7 depending if you are using VS key bindings or InteliJ bindings. Use either Ctrl+Alt+Up/Down or Ctrl+Alt+PageUp/PageDown to go to next and previous highlights.
You can also use the Ctrl+Alt+G combo to bring up a menu of what to jump to. This can be used to move the cursor to the next occurrence.
You should try Productivity Power Tools for Visual Studio 2010. There are other versions, at least one for Visual Studio 2013 and another one for Visual Studio 2015.
It plays nicely with ReSharper and has this selected text matches highlighting both in the editor and the scrollbars among many other features.
Try the visual studio extension RockMargin which highlight the occurrences on double click (like most IDEs). Works fine with VS 2015 and ReSharper.
The Eclipse IDE has a neat little feature that I really miss in Visual Studio.
If I place the cursor on a variable or method name, the IDE will automatically highlight all references to it in the current document within the relevant scope.
I can't seem to find an option to turn on similar behaviour in VS2008 or Resharper 4. I know VS has a Find Usages function, but I'd like to do it automatically on the fly.
Does anyone know of a free addin which will add this functionality?
If you're using ReSharper, you can highlight the usages in the file with Shift-Alt-F11. Place your cursor on the variable you want to find usages of, and press the Shift-Alt-F11 combination.
There is an add-in for Visual Studio that will do something similar called RockScroll.
When you double click on something, it will highlight all occurrences of the item you double clicked. It also changes the vertical scrollbar to a "syntax highlighted thumbnail view" showing an overview of where the item occurs in the file.
I know you mentioned ReSharper, but CodeRush has a nice references window that you can dock and let it search for things on-the-fly or on demand. As a bonus, you can select each usage and it will show you the context surrounding the usage. It also works for methods.
I mentioned CodeRush since they have an express edition, which looks like it includes that feature, but I haven't tried that edition.
Visual Studio 2010 has sorta implemented this, but the feature is somewhat lacking. There is a non-configurable delay between placing the cursor and highlighting.
The RockScroll Addin is not available for Visual Studio 2010 and above.
As a replacement, the free "Highlight all occurrences of selected word" plugin will highlight all occurences of the selected string after a doubleclick. There is no delay as with the native vs2010 highlighter.
It is string-based, which means it works inside comments and string literals.
Microsoft published a tool that sort of does what you want.
Some of my favourite features:
Enhanced Scrollbar
Auto Brace Completion
Ctrl + Click Go To Definition
Open Containing Folder
and the list goes on.
For Visual Studio 2010 and for Visual Studio 2012
In the Delphi IDE, you can hold control and click on a method to jump to its definition. In VS2008, you have to right-click and select "Go To Definition".
I use this function quite often, so I'd really like to get VS to behave like Delphi in this regard - its so much quicker to ctrl+click.
I don't think there's a way to get this working in base VS2008 - am I wrong? Or maybe there's a plugin I could use?
Edit: Click then F12 does work - but isn't really a good solution for me.. It's still way slower than ctrl+click.
I might try AutoHotkey, since I'm already running it for something else.
Edit: AutoHotkey worked for me. Here's my script:
SetTitleMatchMode RegEx
#IfWinActive, .* - Microsoft Visual Studio
^LButton::Send {click}{f12}
Not for Visual Studio 2008, but if you upgrade to Visual Studio 2010, you can use the free
Visual Studio 2010 Pro Power Tools from Microsoft to achieve this.
You could create an Autohotkey script that does that. When you ctrl-click a word, send a doubleclick then a F12.
I don't have AHK handy so I can't try and sketch some code but it should be pretty easy; the AHK recorder should have enough features to let you create it in a point 'n' click fashion and IIRC it is smart enough to let you limit this behaviour to windows of a certain class only.
When you have your script ready just run the script in the background while you code. It takes just an icon in the Notify bar.
Visual Studio 2008 defaults this to F12, but you can set it in Tools | Options | Environment | Keyboard, and change Edit.GoToDefinition - however, I'm not sure how you can get it to CTRL+mouseclick.
Resharper does that but it's not free.
Highly recommended plugin though, most experienced .NET developers use it.
Just a quick note that the following AutoHotkey script works for me in Visual C++ 2010 Express.
SetTitleMatchMode 2
#IfWinActive, Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Express
^LButton::Send {click}{f12}
I also changed the shortcuts for View.NavigateForward and View.NavigateBackward to Alt+Right/Left Arrow since I am used to Eclipse.
Yes, both Resharper (a must have!) and Productivity Power Tools have this feature.
Interesting quirk, though.
If you just go with the defaults on both tools (if you install both tools) you can experience a frequent double-jump problem (jump to definition from where you first click and then jump again from what your cursor is above upon getting to that first definition) until you turn off one of the Ctrl-Click features of these add-ons.
Put the mouse cursor on the method name or any identifier, and press F12