I just started using Visual Studio 2013. I liked the auto brace completion feature. But in C#, when I press enter after entering {, no extra line to write our code is formed, like in eclipse. Instead the cursor will be at the left side of the }. Did anybody notice that? Is there a way to fix it.
When I press Enter key after putting brace, the editor is like this:
class Example {
|}
(The cursor is where the pipeline character is..)
EDIT:
I just found that in Visual C++ 2013, the braces work as expected.
class Example {
|
}
(The cursor is where the pipeline character is..)
Check within Options on the Text Editor/All Langauges/General page. Select "Automatic brace completion."
By the way in 2013 you can search for words like "brace" at the top of the treeview control in Options to find all the pages were "brace" is found.
Answer taken from here.
Try typing
class
then press Tab.
Same goes for interface, if blocks, etc.
If you want to write a property, type
prop
then press Tab.
You can press Ctrl-Enter and it will reposition the closing brace as you expected. Because Ctrl-Enter makes a new line above the current line.
Recently switched to Textmate on Mac for coding. On PC when ever I want to tab in or out a block of code I just highlight and press tab or shift+tab to move it in our out. It's very useful when you are adding an extra loop or conditional statement to a block of code to keep everything tidy and neatly indented.
On Textmate however when I try this it just replaces my selected text with a tab. So is there a way to do tab and de-tab lines of code in textmate?
Indent: Alt+Tab
Un-Indent: Shift+Alt+Tab
the hotkey is command-left bracket to move left and command-right bracket to move right
(the buttons next to 'p')
heres a link to more hotkeys and such
http://projects.serenity.de/textmate/tutorials/basics/
You can use Shift+Tab to decrease indent; You just need to make and assign a macro. You can reuse this technique to accomplish a great many things.
Enter some text, and intend them, this is mostly for feedback.
Click the Record Macro Button
Use ⇧+⌥+⇥ (aka; Shift + Option + Tab) to decrease the indentation.
Click the record button to stop recording the macro.
Use the Edit menu or ⌃+⌘+M to save your macro;
Saving will prompt you to create a new bundle*, or add your macro to an existing bundle.
Add a Key Equivalent by clicking in the field and pressing ⇧+⇥
Your bundle-macro should look like the one below, simply Save and you're done! TextMate will now decrease indent on ⇧+⇥
*: (as noted by u/PatrickT) Sadly the create new bundle functionality has not yet been implemented, and you must choose to add to an existing bundle. You can still create a bundle via Bundles -> Edit Bundles then Command + N.
As an alternative, you can change the keybindings, see Link
Here is what I did:
Install Link
Go to File -> Open -> User Key Bindings, this will create/edit ~/Libary/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict
Add a binding, for the action enter shiftRight: (indent) manually (this is a TextMate specific action and not in the pre-populated actions list)
Choose a shortcut, I used cmd+alt+right
Do the same for the action shiftLeft: (un-indent, I used cmd+alt+left)
Save and then restart TextMate
I used a shortcut with arrow keys as my right hand is already on the arrow keys when I am selecting multiple lines, so this is a good fit.
The reason why I did it was because I have a german keyboard and alt+tab/alt+shift+tab don't work for me since I am using Witch for app-switching using these exact shortcuts.
EDIT: cmd+alt+left/right don't work when you have multiple tabs open, as they are used for navigate to next or previous tab in TextMate... seems this cannot be changed or overridden (I tried Setting Shortcut Keys in Textmate). Looking for an alternative shortcut now.
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Visual Studio is such a massively big product that even after years of working with it I sometimes stumble upon a new/better way to do things or things I didn't even know were possible.
For instance-
Crtl + R, Ctrl + W to show white spaces. Essential for editing Python build scripts.
Under "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\Text Editor"
Create a String called Guides with the value "RGB(255,0,0), 80" to have a red line at column 80 in the text editor.
What other hidden features have you stumbled upon?
Make a selection with ALT pressed - selects a square of text instead of whole lines.
Tracepoints!
Put a breakpoint on a line of code. Bring up the Breakpoints Window and right click on the new breakpoint. Select 'When Hit...'. By ticking the 'Print a message' check box Visual Studio will print out a message to the Debug Output every time the line of code is executed, rather than (or as well as) breaking on it. You can also get it to execute a macro as it passes the line.
You can drag code to the ToolBox. Try it!
Click an identifier (class name, variable, etc) then hit F12 for "Go To Definition". I'm always amazed how many people I watch code use the slower right-click -> "Go To Definition" method.
EDIT: Then you can use Ctrl+- to jump back to where you were.
CTRL+SHIFT+V will cycle through your clipboard, Visual Studio keeps a history of copies.
Sara Ford covers lots of lovely tips: http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford/archive/tags/Visual+Studio+2008+Tip+of+the+Day/default.aspx
But some of my favourites are Code Snippets, Ctrl + . to add a using <Namespace> or generate a method stub.
I can't live without that.
Check out a great list in the Visual Studio 2008 C# Keybinding poster: http://www.microsoft.com/downloadS/details.aspx?familyid=E5F902A8-5BB5-4CC6-907E-472809749973&displaylang=en
CTRL-K, CTRL-D
Reformat Document!
This is under the VB keybindings, not sure about C#
How many times do you debug an array in a quickwatch or a watch window and only have visual studio show you the first element? Add ",N" to the end of the definition to make studio show you the next N items as well. IE "this->m_myArray" becomes "this->m_array,5".
Incremental search: While having a source document open hit (CTRL + I) and type the word you are searching for you can hit (CTRL + I) again to see words matching your input.
You can use the following codes in the watch window.
#err - display last error
#err,hr - display last error as an HRESULT
#exception - display current exception
Ctrl-K, Ctrl-C to comment a block of text with // at the start
Ctrl-K, Ctrl-U to uncomment a block of text with // at the start
Can't live without it! :)
Stopping the debugger from stepping into trivial functions.
When you’re stepping through code in the debugger, you can spend a lot of time stepping in and out of functions you’re not particularly interested in, with names such as GetID(), or std::vector<>(), to pick a C++ example. You can use the registry to make the debugger ignore these.
For Visual Studio 2005, you have to go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio \8.0\NativeDE\StepOver and add string values containing regular expressions for each function or set of functions you wish to exclude; e.g.
std::vector.*::.*
TextBox::GetID
You can also override these for individual exceptions. For instance, suppose you did want to step into the vector class’s destructor:
std::vector.*::\~.*=StepInto
You can find details for other versions of Visual Studio at http://blogs.msdn.com/andypennell/archive/2004/02/06/69004.aspx
Ctrl-F10: run to cursor during debugging. Took me ages to find this, and I use it all the time;
Ctrl-E, Ctrl-D: apply standard formatting (which you can define).
TAB key feature.
If you know snippet key name, write and click double Tab. for example:
Write
foreach
and then click tab key twice to
foreach (object var in collection_to_loop)
{
}
2. If you write any event, write here
Button btn = new Button();
btn.Click +=
and then click tab key twice to
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Button btn = new Button();
btn.Click += new EventHandler(btn_Click);
}
void btn_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
throw new Exception("The method or operation is not implemented.");
}
btn_Click function write automatically
in XAML Editor, Write any event. for example:
MouseLeftButtonDown then click tab
MouseLeftButtonDown="" then click tab again
MouseLeftButtonDown="Button_MouseLeftButtonDown" in the code section Button_MouseLeftButtonDown method created.
Sara Ford has this market cornered.
http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford/default.aspx
More Visual Studio tips and tricks than you can shake a stick at.
Some others:
The Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 3-month trial editions are fully-functional, and can be used indefinitely (forever) by setting the system clock back prior to opening VS. Then, when VS is opened, set the system clock forward again so your datetimes aren't screwed up.
But that's really piracy and I can't recommend it, especially when anybody with a .edu address can get a fully-functional Pro version of VS2008 through Microsoft Dreamspark.
You can use Visual Studio to open 3rd-party executables, and browse embedded resources (dialogs, string tables, images, etc) stored within.
Debugging visualizers are not exactly a "hidden" feature but they are somewhat neglected, and super-useful, since in addition to using the provided visualizers you can roll your own for specific data sets.
Debugger's "Set Instruction Pointer" or "Set Next Statement" command.
Conditional breakpoints (as KiwiBastard noted).
You can use Quickwatch etc. to evaluate not only the value of a variable, but runtime expressions around that variable.
T4 (Text Template Transformation Toolkit). T4 is a code generator built right into Visual Studio
Custom IntelliSense dropdown height, for example displaying 50 items instead of the default which is IMO ridiculously small (8).
(To do that, just resize the dropdown next time you see it, and Visual Studio will remember the size you selected next time it opens a dropdown.)
Discovered today:
Ctrl + .
Brings up the context menu for refactoring (then one that's accessible via the underlined last letter of a class/method/property you've just renamed - mouse over for menu or "Ctrl" + ".")
A lot of people don't know or use the debugger to it's fullest - I.E. just use it to stop code, but right click on the red circle and there are a lot more options such as break on condition, run code on break.
Also you can change variable values at runtime using the debugger which is a great feature - saves rerunning code to fix a silly logic error etc.
Line transpose, Shift-Alt-T
Swaps two line (current and next) and moves cursor to the next line. I'm lovin it. I've even written a macro which changed again position by one line, executed line transpose and changed line position again so it all looking like I swapping current line with previous (Reverse line transpose).
Word transpose, Shift-Ctrl-T
When developing C++, Ctrl-F7 compiles the current file only.
Document Outline in the FormsDesigner (CTRL + ALT + T)
Fast control renaming, ordering and more!
To auto-sync current file with Solution Explorer. So don't have to look where the file lives in the project structure
Tools -> Options -> Projects and Solutions -> "Track Active Item in Solution Explorer"
Edit: If this gets too annoying for you then you can use Dan Vanderboom's macro to invoke this feature on demand through a keystroke.
(Note: Taken from the comment below by Jerry).
I'm not sure if it's "hidden", but not many people know about it -- pseudoregisters. Comes very handy when debugging, I've #ERR, hr in my watch window all the time.
Ctrl-Minus, Ctrl-Plus, navigates back and forward where you've been recently (only open files, though).
I don't use it often, but I do love:
ctrl-alt + mouse select
To select in a rectangular block, to 'block' boundaries.
As noted in comments,
alt + mouse select
Does just a plain rectangular block.
Here's something I learned (for C#):
You can move the cursor to the opening curly brace from the closing curly brace by pressing Control + ].
I learned this on an SO topic that's a dupe of this one:
“Hidden Secrets” of the Visual Studio .NET debugger?
CTRL + Shift + U -> Uppercase highlighted section.
CTRL + U -> Lowercase the highlighted section
Great for getting my SQL Statements looking just right when putting them into string queries.
Also useful for code you've found online where EVERYTHING IS IN CAPS.
Middle Mouse Button Click on the editor tab closes the tab.
To display any chunk of data as an n-byte "array", use the following syntax in Visual Studio's QuickWatch window:
variable, n
For example, to view a variable named foo as a 256-byte array, enter the following expression in the QuickWatch window:
foo, 256
This is particularly useful when viewing strings that aren't null-terminated or data that's only accessible via a pointer. You can use Visual Studio's Memory window to achieve a similar result, but using the QuickWatch window is often more convenient for a quick check.