@ScottCate: Visual Studio Tricks

#84 Search for a symbol

Scott Cate — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:00:00 GMT

Another search tip/trick or command is Symbol Search. This is much different than a string search. Watch this short video to learn about the built in Symbol Search in Visual Studio

Edit.FindSymbol is also bound to [Alt]+[F12]. You can search within your current solution (including or excluding references), or even within the .NET Framework.

#83 Search from the command line

Scott Cate — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 09:00:00 GMT

Did you know Visual Studio has a Command mode? This isn't cmd.exe - but it's virutally the same concept, inside of visual studio. This command window will let you type commands for virtually any command in Visual Studio. This video will show you how to search from the Command Line.

Additional Command Line options:
Edit.Find /options - Shows which options are currently set
Edit.Find /reset - clears all options

Some examples:
Edit.Find MainForm /case / proc (Quick Find, match case, in current procedure - )
Edit.Find MainForm /o /m /u /h /l (Quick Find, open documents, match whole word, mark matches, search up, search hidden)
Edit.Replace /doc /all (Quick Replace, replace all, current document)
Edit.FindInFiles btnCancel /lookin:"c:\users\saraf\documents\visual studio 2008\projects\vb samples" /ext:*.vb /text2 (Find In Files, look in the VB Samples folder with files of .vb extension, and show results in Find Results 2 Window)

#82 Show and hide find messages

Scott Cate — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 09:00:00 GMT

Ever dismiss a dialog, and then want to get it back again? Far too often, we uncheck the "Show this message again" checkbox not knowing how to get the message back. For Find and Replace, you can specify whether to hide or show these message boxes at Tools - Options - Environment - Find and Replace, options Display informational messages and Display warning messages.

Informational messages are those "FYI - For your information" style messages. Examples include "no more occurrences found," "the specified text was not found," "Find reached the starting point," and so forth. Warning messages are those that ask a question along the lines of "are you sure?" For example, "Do you want to cancel?", "Do you want to open files when you do a find in replace in closed files to enable undo," and so forth.

#81 Replace in all files (With Undo Support)

Scott Cate — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 11:00:00 GMT

Global search/replace can be tricky. Often times you’ll end up replacing something that you didn’t realize was going to be replaced. Having an undo feature is vey helpful. This video shows you the ins and outs, of Find/Replace in all files.

Just like Ctrl+H does a Quick Replace, Ctrl+Shift+H will bring up the Replace in Files window. We've seen all these options over the past 2 weeks, but there's just one more now that has become enabled.

“Keep modified files open after Replace All”

Obviously, if you check this option, all modified files will be opened in the editor. The significance of this is that you can do an undo, if you change your mind. If you don't have this option checked, we'll prompt you "are you sure you don't want to do an undo?" After you commit the Replace all with the files opened, if you decide to do an undo, just simply press Ctrl+Z on one of the newly modified / opened files. You'll notice that all open files will have the dirty bit * removed, reverting to their previous contents.

TechEd DEV315 VSTricks – New Projects

Scott Cate — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:00:00 GMT

InVisual Studio past, creating a new project or solution was harder than it is today with 2010. The reasons are numerous, but the biggest time saver is New Project Type filtering. Need a console app? Just start typing “consol” and the list of all possible project types on your system are displayed. You can also download new Microsoft or Community project types. This is great, great, great news. Visual Studio is getting to the point where it’s no longer just giving you options for what was installed from the DVD, and big installation add-ons. Now you’re able to quickly jump online, grab a new project type (maybe for a new technology) and start using it in seconds.

TechEd DEV315 VSTricks – Temp Projects

Scott Cate — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:50:00 GMT

Do you ever write quick and dirty “do you think this will work?” code? I do. You have an idea – open up a quick console app, write some code, and then desert it never to be seen again. I do that a couple of times a week, and my hard drive ends up littered with ConsoleApplication32.csproj or DeleteMe19.csproj, projects. This video will show you how to work with Temporary projects – that don’t litter your hard drive. it’s less than 4 minute.

TechEd DEV315 VSTricks - Navigation

Scott Cate — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:43:00 GMT

In the real world, or Visual Studio solutions are big. Multi Projects. Lots of Code. Lots of Files, Classes, etc. This new #VS2010 feature may be the most friendly new feature, and the largest time saving feature you learn. Better, Faster Navigation. Have something in your head you want to get? A File? A Method? Some Class somewhere? This Navigation video tells all. Check it out!

TechEd DEV315 VSTricks - Outlining

Scott Cate — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:32:00 GMT

Outlining is that little [PLUS] or [MINUS] sign in the left gutter of Visual studio. You see these around the manual regions that you create – and aroudn natural code blocks like classes, methods, etc. New in Visual Studio 2010 is the ability to create Ad-hoc regions, without the #region command. It’s rather nice, because it doesn’t change the source code for others, it’s your own private little “hide this code” trick :). This short4 minute video gives you a great introduction.

TechEd Dev315 VSTricks – Multiple Monitor Support

Scott Cate — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:28:00 GMT

Visual Studio Support Multiple Monitors? This video shows you how. Peel out windows, like the Solution Explorer, dock them to you second monitor, and the best part is, the window position persists across VS2010 restarts. Very Nice! Check out the video – it’s only 3 Minutes.

TechEd Dev315 VSTricks – Editor Tricks

Scott Cate — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:08:00 GMT

If you’re a developer like me, you live 90% of your work life at your computer, inside Visual Studio. These tips and tricks will help you inside the editor. New VS2010 Features like Call Hierarchy, find all references, go to definition, the new Code Definition Window, Navigating Highlighted words and references, Multi-Line Edit, and Zoom. All these tricks are also explained with their keyboard shorts.