Sara Ford's Weblog

Updated 30Apr2008: Note the binary directory is for Visual Studio 2008. I’ve hinted at a few of the external tools tokens, but let’s explore a little more.  I think most of these are self-explanatory, and the help documentation explores each in depth...

At the bottom of the External Tools dialog, you’ll see more options for customizing the external tool within visual studio.  Today’s tip is about the Use output window option.  The idea here is you’re running a .bat file, and you want to track...

Continuing with the newly added notepad tool from Friday’s tip , you can use the External Tools dialog to sort your list of external tools as they will appear on the Tools menu.  To the right you’ll find the Move up and Move down. You can specify...

Go to the Tools – External Tools dialog, and you’ll see the Add   button.  Clicking Add will create a [New Tools 1] placeholder.  Let’s add Notepad as an external tool by calling it “Notepad” as the Title .  For the command , this...

It’s the External Tools Tip of the Day series!! Okay I have to admit, I’m not the local expert in External Tools, so I could really use help with examples.  I can talk about the functionality all day long, but nothing is better than real world examples...

WOW!  Tip number 200.  There are no words, except for “what a difference a day makes.” I’m so excited about today’s tip.  (not because that it is tip #200 – this was purely coincidental), but because I accidentally found it while browsing...

You may have noticed the “Stop Search” command on the Output Window context menu.  So, I spent a good 20 minutes trying to figure out how to enable this command, before i broke down and emailed the developer.  Apparently you can’t enabled it...

Depending on your environment settings (like the Visual Basic Default Settings), you may have noticed that the Output Window’s debug content is redirected to the Immediate window instead.  Or maybe you want the output window’s debug content to go...

the General Development Settings, F8 and Shift+F8 are bound to Edit.GoToNextLocation and Edit.GoToPreviousLocation. If you have the Error List open, F8 and Shift+F8 will take you directly to the error in question by highlighting that part of the code...

On the Tools – Options – Environment – Fonts and Colors page, in the Show Settings For combo box, there’s an option for Output Window. When selected, you’ll be able to customize the standard plain, selected, and inactive selection text options colors...

if you double-click on any error or warning in the output window, you will jump directly to that location in the file (or the closest equivalent).   There’s also a button on the output window toolbar that allows you to do the same thing, just...

This week is the MVP Summit at Microsoft.  When i’m not deleting email or getting my 4 hours of sleep (thanks upstairs neighbors), i’m hanging out with our MVPs, listening to their feedback, learning more about their projects. Thursday afternoon...

For those following the Tip of the Day series, I’ve run out of interesting tips with the Toolbox.  If you have a toolbox tip, please send it to me! The output window has an icon on the toolbar that allows you to enable Word Wrap.  I personally...

Combining this week’s tips, you can create your own toolbox tabs to store practically whatever you want in them.  Now, for that upcoming presentation, you can create your own tab by choosing the Add Tab on the toolbox context menu and adding content...

Microspotting – Like the paparazzi, but for geeks.  Here’s my interview with Ariel, where we talk about community, blogging, CodePlex, agile development, and of course open source: Sara Ford on what Microsoft can learn from open source And, Ariel...

Yesterday’s tip talked about how you can drag and drop code from within the General Toolbox.  Today, we’re going to talk about doing the same thing with controls.  Obviously, you can use the mouse to drag and drop to a new tab, and even do a...

Today’s tip is especially helpful if you are going to write code in a presentation.  Now you don’t have to code in front of everyone, but rather have it all typed up on the side, ready to go! You’ve probably noticed the Toolbox General tab showing...

Today’s tip comes directly from the developer who works on the toolbox.  He told me he sees a lot of questions where people are trying to figure out why a particular control isn’t there, especially when they’ve just recently added controls. ...

You’ve probably noticed how the pointer control is sticky at the top of each tab group.  This is because whenever a control is selected in the Toolbox, the mouse pointer automatically becomes a "drag" for that control, meaning that you...

Although most of the time, the controls are listed in Alphabetical order.  But, if you ever need to do a reset, you can bring up the Toolbox Content menu, and select Sort Items Alphabetically. Technorati Tags: VS2005Tip , VS2008Tip

Just spent my first 3 days in New York City, attending the BlogHer Business Conference .  When asked how did I enjoy NYC, I recalled the scene from the first Matrix movie, where Neo is crossing the very busy street in the crosswalk during orientation...

I’ve created a new blog to host the translated Tip of the Day.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible to host the localized content on this blog without it being syndicated into the main RSS feed as i had originally thought.  The Japanese Visual...

You could page up and down throughout the toolbox to reach the previous or next control group, or you could just do Ctrl+Up Arrow or Ctrl+Down Arrow. Technorati Tags: VS2005Tip , VS2008Tip

These are specific to the Toolbox.  Pressing * (Shift+8 on ENU keyboards) will expand everything in the Toolbox and pressing / (note it is just the / key, and not Shift+/ as that’s a ?) will collapse everything. Pressing * will expand And Pressing...

And yet another i had no idea you could do this until someone showed me.  By having just the Icon View, you can save a lot of space within the Toolbox. For each toolbox grouping, you can customize whether to show the flat list of controls and their...