Visual Studio 2008 Report Designer - can't turn on gridlines - visual-studio

Microsoft in their infinite wisdom have seen fit to remove the useful "Draw Grid" and "Snap to Grid" checkboxes in the report properties dialog that were in VS 2005 but are not in VS 2008. I'm assuming they put that functionality elsewhere but I can't find it after going through what seems like every menu option available. Does anybody know how to turn on the gridlines?

right click menu
h ttp://i37.tinypic.com/2vijfck.jpg
report properties dialog
h ttp://i33.tinypic.com/2yvnhus.jpg
You absolutely sure you're using VS 2008? - looks like the 2005 dialog to me

There´s no how to do it, microsoft just took it off, because now the objects align with other objects, and you have 3 options to move the objects now, with mouse, by selecting the object and moving with your arrows in keyboard, which moves around 0,30 cm, and by holding ctrl and pressing arrows, which is more precisely.
There´s a lot of people complaining about that, maybe they will put this functionality back, I don´t know....

alt text http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/7299/vs2008snaptogrid.png
If you right click off to the right of your report and select properties you will find Draw grid and Snap to Grid

Related

Where is the Sync with active document button in Visual Studio?

Where is the Sync with active document button in Visual Studio?
I know that I can press Alt + Shift + L and I will get the Sync with active document.
I also know that I can enable in the Options the feature to work every time I focus on another file.
But I can not find a button in the VS interface to do that. Is it even present? I would expect such a button be somewhere in the top of the interface of the VS. Somewhere near the comment/uncomment buttons (that is just my feeling that it is there, I have no proofs or reasons to think so).
I know this might sound silly, but I spent about a day trying to figure out where the button went in the latest VS2019 (Version 16.10.2) update.
After one complete day of using the keyboard shortcut instead, I realised that the Icon has changed to a different Icon.
Note: The Track Active Item in Solution Explorer checkbox should be unchecked to see this Icon, as posted by #Sandro Stadler.
Pretty simple.
If you check this option, the document and solution explorer will be automatically synchronized and the icon will be hidden.
Deselect to show the icon in the solution manager.
In VS 2019 it is in the Solution Explorer window:

Is it possible to hide outline margin in Visual Studio 2012?

In Visual Studio 2012 it's a lot of margins to the left of source code text: Indicator Margin, Selection Margin and Outline Margin. As an old programmer i prefer an uncluttered text, so i want all 3 margins to be hidden from me. In Text editor settings i can hide indicator and selection margins, but i didn't found how to hide an outline margins. Outline graphics (all this "+" things and ines) can be easily hidden from "edit" menu, but margins itself remains. Is it possible to hide it or such feature is not implemented? In previous versions of Visual Studio it auto-hides if "selection margin" was disabled, but now it seems that it don't hide at all :(.
Update
A little clarification why I need it. As correctly mentioned in comments, it's very unusual to have preferences for text formatting and appearance. I agree with that. Unfortunately, in my personal case, I work with text like 10 hours per day for dozens of years and my brain is kind of trained to calculate indentation from text editor left edge. And every time I work in Visual Studio my "wrong indentation" instinct is often triggered by this empty space :). Of course i can re-train myself, but since ALL editors except Visual Studio displays text close to left edge, I will try to configure Visual Studio first.
Turn off the Indicator margin with Tools + Options, Text Editor, General, untick "Indicator margin"
Turn off the Selection margin with Tools + Options, Text Editor, General, untick "Selection margin"
Turn off the Outline bar with Edit + Outlining, Stop Outlining. That is however liable to come back when you open a new file. You can make it consistent for the C# IDE with Tools + Options, Text Editor, C#, Advanced, untick "Enter outlining mode when files open". If you want to do this for other kinds of files as well then you need to write an add-in that listens for the DocumentEventsClass.DocumentOpened event.
I've created an extension for this, it's for VS2015 but if you haven't upgraded yet it should work for VS2012 as well (assuming you're using an edition that supports extensions). The source code is only a few lines and is shown in the screenshot of the posted link.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/saraford/archive/2007/09/13/did-you-know-you-can-hide-outlining-selection-margin-without-turning-off-outlining.aspx
Tools – Options – Text Editor – General, and uncheck Selection Margin...
This work?
Go to VisualStudio->Tools->Options
Drill down to Text Editor->C#->Advanced and uncheck "Enter outlining mode when files open"
Other language editors have similar options to disable outlining mode.
Any files you have open before changing this setting need to be re-opened, or you can turn off outlining from the context menu for each open file. Easier to just close/re-open.
Hope that helps!
Here's an extension that worked perfectly for me: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=JustinClareburtMSFT.HotSettings
It has custom options to hide/show:
the entire margin
breakpoint margin
line numbers
selection margin
I can't tell if anyone actually answered your question (which is mine today!). Please see http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/109611/Color-Indicator-for-Code-Changes-Track-Changes-in and particularly the "Enable / Disable" section: "Go to Tools > Options > TextEditor. In General section, you can check or uncheck the 'Track Change' option."
Agree this feature is a big visual hassle during initial development, but it can be helpful during "maintenance" changes.
Corrected per "external link" comment.

Disable code window undock in VS2010

I've seen cases where people are asking how to disable on double click.
But i'd like to go one further and disable the feature altogether, does anyone know how to? I don't mean all windows (Properties, Debug, Output) just code windows (Pages, Controls, other files)
I'm using VS2010 SP1 + PowerTools and I keep undocking code windows when selecting the tab if i accidently drag down and it's really frustrating!
Many thanks in advance,
Cheers,
P.
I also don't know any option to disable it, but you can restore the window to its last position by "Ctrl + Double-Click" on the tab's title bar.
Hope it helps.
These are two same question:
Turn off double-click undock in VS2010
How to disable floating tabs in Visual Studio 2010
For anyone who actually wants the answer to this, in my version of Productivity Power Tools (v10.0.20626.18) there is a way to disable this "feature".
Tools->Options->Productivity Power Tools->Document Tab Well->General->Advanced Options...
Under the "Floating Tab Well" group box, uncheck "Enable float on double-click"
http://i.stack.imgur.com/XxODT.png

How do I get a code window to split vertically in Visual Studio 2008? (not HTML mode)

In Visual Studio 2008, it seems that Window -> Split only gives me a horizontal split, and Window -> New horizontal tab group does not allow me to edit the same file in both panes.
Note that I am talking about C# code windows, not HTML editing mode.
I want to edit the same file in two horizontally arranged panes.
Is this possible? Free add-ons are fine.
Edit: I have CodeRush Express installed, and it seems to have done something to my code window borders.
Edit #2: It's not CodeRush. I tried on VM with no CodeRush, and I have exactly the same issue.
Ok, I found the solution here.
The answer is:
Window -> New Window
Window -> New Vertical Tab Group
This duplicates the current tab so you'll get [Form1.cs:1] and [Form1.cs:2] tabs; and then you can use a vertical tab group to view them side by side.
I believe that it's not CodeRush's fault. A vanilla 2008 install only lets you do the split view with one file on the top and one file on the bottom. The only side-by side option is the horizontal tab-group feature (with the problem of only having a file open in one of them, as you mentioned.)
The obvious workarounds would be to either make a read-only copy of the file elsewhere and use that in one tab-group, or open up a second instance of VS. It does have decent handling of files that get changed in other apps, so having the same file open in two instances isn't a problem.
In VS2010 I couldn't find the Vertical Tab group button. The workaround is:
1. Open Fullscreen mode
2. Click and drag the window to the far right (or left) and it should give
you an option to view both windows side by side.
3. Exit full screen mode and you should now have the ability to click and
drag windows between vertical tab groups, and it even now allows you to
drag to a new vertical tab group.
No idea why you have to jump into fullscreen first, and i seem to remember not having to do that before.
As a one-time developer on CodeRush, I doubt that this would be caused by CodeRush Xpress. I'm currently running the latest beta of CodeRush 9.1.0 on Visual Studio 2008, and splits are working fine. However, you could certainly try uninstalling CodeRush Xpress to see if that clears up the problem. If it does, I would recommend posting in DevExpress' peer-to-peer forums.
alt text http://diditwith.net/content_images/CRXSplits.png
I like the vertical tab group option. The only thing that bothers me about it is that I cannot put the solution explorer on both windows (Or properties for that matter). I have to navigate all on one side and move screens around.
I found this nifty add on tool for VS 2012 that allows you to compare two files at the same time and make changes.
Check this out:

Multiple Monitors with Visual Studio 2008

I've got 2 monitors, and most of the time I've got some reference material open on one screen, and Visual Studio on the other. To really get in the zone, though, I need my code to be the only thing I see. Does anyone know if it's possible to have multiple code windows in Visual Studio? So far the best I can do is put debugger output and the solution explorer on my left monitor, and the rest of VS on the right. I would love to have code on both windows, however.
If you right click on the file tabs, there's an option for "New Vertical Tab group" Just maximize across both monitors and put the divider on the monitor divide and I think that's what you're after.
See also the "Visual Studio and dual/multiple monitors: how do I get optimized use out of my monitors?" question.
Though I use StudioTools for other purposes, it has a "Tear off Editor" option, with which you can "tear off" the file to a window and resize the window. Find it quite helpful
Instead of enlarging the VS2008 window to span the two monitors, you can display the 'Code Definition Window' on another monitor: just drag it outside the main window! I find this very handy to avoid switching between code windows: it is very often that one is interested in the definition of the symbol under the cursor...
The same is true for other windows like the 'Class View', the 'Call Browser', etc. You can choose to keep them grouped in the same group with tabs, or drag each of them separately (click on the label of the tab to start the drag).

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