Microsoft visual studio 2010 : Tips, Tricks and Hacks

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With support for Windows 7 features developers can access application specific features faster in Visual Studio 2010. VS 2010 offers built in support for new tools that help in developing applications for next generation platform, Windows7 operating system. It includes a new WPF4 that supports Win7 Taskbar Integration, Custom Jump Lists, Custom Thumbnail Previews, Multi Touch and Visual Feedback from the taskbar etc. The new WPF4 Windows API code pack allows developers to use Windows 7 features for Visual Studio 2010 User Interface without leaving managed code. This is an added advantage for developers to develop their application with Windows7 look and feel. VS 2010 needs Windows Share Point Services (WSS) and SharePoint Server to be installed in the system to work with SharePoint Development related projects. In VS 2010 you can access the recent solutions from the task bar. With a number of new features and upgrades in VS 2010 developers would require some new tips and tricks to make things better.

Customize the start page

In VS 2010 you can easily customize the XAML page. In the start page remainders for the team to not forget project deadlines and coding standards. It is also easy to organize the start page with company custom templates, specific templates, or document repositories.

In order to do that apply these steps

Step 1: Go to Tools > Options > Environment > Start up > Customize Start Page >specify the path of the xaml file

Step 2: Edit the StartPage.xaml file using Visual Studio. In case you make changes to the file start page in the Visual Studio will be updated automatically.

Disable add-ins

More often the systems run down into random crashes due to more than required add-ins. It is better to disable the add-ins installed in VS 2010 to avoid hassles.

To disable add-ins

Go to Tools > Add-in Manager

In case you wanna disable add-ins from starting an launch.

To reset all add-ins from Visual Studio command prompt use devenv.exe/resetaddin

For resetting a specific Add-in use the command devenv.exe/resetaddin<NameSpace/Class>

Reset VS 2010 IDE

Sometimes you need to reset the Visual Studio settings.

Here are steps to reset Visual Studio Settings

Step 1: Go to the Tools > Import and Export Settings

Step 2: Now either save the current settings or override the existing setting

Step 3: Specify the settings that you wanna reset and click on finish

Alternately, you can do the same from command prompt using devenv /resetsettings.

Repeating the last search

After performing the find operation you can repeat the find.

See these steps

Step 1: Verify your last Find shows up in the Find box on the Toolbar

Step 2: Press F3 (forward) or SHIFT + F3 (reverse) to find the next or previous instance

Now you can use the hot keys to find the previous searches

Customize how display file results in file results window

To see the file results in the WIndow

Step 1: Go to Edit > Find and Replace > Find in Files

It is easy to customize the Find in Files results to show what you want to see and how you want to see it.

Here is an example

For this you have to hack the Registry and follow the steps

Step 1: Open up RegEdit
Step 2: Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\Find
Step 3: Add a new string called Find result format with a value of $f$e($l,$c):$t\r\n
Step 4: Now hop into Visual Studio and run a Find in Files search

Pinning watched variables

In Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 you can hover a variable or object and pin it to the debug window. It expands the idea of watches and puts the data right in the source code editor. You might get the benefits of using this the first time you tried to see what was happening to the set of variables or data through a loop.

Hit the thumb tack on the right to pin the variable. Combine pinning with conditional breakdown and it will result in some powerful scrubbing capabilities.

View the debugging tool in secondary monitor

You need to have a Windows like Watch Window and Output Window on the secondary monitor and VS on the primary monitor. Resize these windows to occupy half of the screen.  Use Tools – Import / Export Settings to save your favorite window layouts.  As these windows only appear during debugging there would be no trouble with secondary monitor when not in use.

Pin recent projects list on the start page

You must be tired of not getting the Recent Projects list on the Start Page. In VS 2010 you can just pin the recent projects list. Here is how