Sara Ford's Weblog

As I’ve been writing the Object Browser Tip Series, I noticed that there were a lot of commands available under Tools – Options – Environment – Keyboard…  Just type in ObjectBrowser and you’ll see what i mean. Technically, this is a bug, since not...

In yesterday’s tip , I talk about how you can export and import your Object Browser settings.  If you examined the .vssettings file for just the Object Browser Settings category in Import / Export Settings, you may have seen <PropertyValue name...

Tuesday starts TechEd 2008, where I’ll find myself presenting three(!) talks.  The third talk came a few weeks ago when Noah Coad became unavailable to do the Visual Studio 2008 IDE Tips and Tricks talk.  Being the tireless community people...

Over these past couple of weeks, we’ve taken a close look at customizing your Object Browser experience, from sorting to searching to filtering, among other options. Your customizations can be saved out to a .vssetings file via the Tools – Import / Export...

Today’s tip you’ve probably tried on your own, just in hopes that it would work.  But just in case you never thought about it, like in the Solution Explorer ( which works btw, and i’m still singing my tip of the day songs), yes, the Object Browser...

Just like yesterday’s tip that talked about going to an object or function’s definition, you can find all the references of what you have selected in the Object Browser. In the General Development Settings, Edit.FindAllReferences is bound to Shift+F12...

On the context menu of both the Member Pane (right panel) and the Object Pane (left panel), you’ll see the Go To Definition command.  You can use this command to navigate directly into the code where whatever you have selected is defined (or you...

On the context menu for either the Object Pane (left) or Member Pane (top-right), you can sort by four different options: Alphabetically, Object Type, Object Access, or Group by Object Type. Alphabetically is self-explanatory.  Object type will have...

Now we’ll move to the second toolbar in the Object Browser, which is all about searching.  But the search scope depends on what you have selected in the Browse combo box, or in other words the Object Browser Scope .  For example, if you try...

This tip is new for Visual Studio 2008. You can learn more about extension methods in the documentation for both Visual Basic and C#. In the Object Browser Settings, you’ll see the Show Extension Methods option. Now, when you have an extension method...

The next option in the Object Browser Settings is the Show Inherited Members . When enabled, you’ll see all inherited members, including those inherited from System.Object. When disabled, you’ll see a much shorter list. Technorati Tags: VS2005Tip , VS2008Tip

A few tips ago, I gave the documentation a hard time about now having an example.  But in today’s tip, the documentation is now “tip of the hat” instead of “wag of the finger,” a reference to The Colbert Report . For today’s tip, the documentation...

Today’s tip is a continuation from yesterday’s tip which talked about how to hide or show hidden members and types in the Object Browser.  So today’s tip is how to actually make something hidden or hidable. In the System.ComponentModel namespace...

Update: after some email debates between the verbs “Savoir” and “Connaitre” (the French verb “to know”), i’ve updated this blog title with “Savoir”.  For those of you how studied French, you probably remember that Savoir is to know something whereas...

I never officially tested the object browser, but rather played back-up tester, in case someone went on vacation, needed help analyzing failures during a full test pass, etc.  So for most of these tips, i’ve been browsing their test cases and documentation...

In the Object Browser Settings, there’s the Show Base Types option. For the example below, Class1 inherits from ClassBase.  When this option is enabled, under Class1 you’ll see the “Base Types” folder.  If you’ve been wondering how to get rid...

For the next several tips, we’re going to take apart the Object Browser Settings for what appears in the object browser. The first set of options control your View preference in the Object pane, which is either by Namespace or by Containers .  Think...

This is really a continuation from yesterday’s tip, but wanted to call it out as a separate tip.  I was kinda surprised to see it in the list of commands, but then again, one can never have too many keyboard shortcuts =) As far as binding this to...

It feels weird not to append a # at the end of a blog title.  Oh Tip of the Day, what have you done to me? Anyways… I’m really excited to see a .NET User Group get created back home.  Shout outs to Keith Elder and Aubrey Cote for getting this...

Another set of buttons on the Object Browser toolbar belongs to Navigate Forward and Navigate Back. The pages you visit within the object browser are saved as a MRU (Most Recently Used). This alone is somewhat exciting, but what really makes it exciting...

Let’s say that you find the component that you want to add to your solution.  Typically, you’ll go to the solution explorer, right-click on the project node and select Add References, bring up the Add Reference Dialog, and you know how the rest goes...

Expanding a little more on yesterday’s tip, you can create a custom components list for the Object Browser. There are two ways to reach the custom components list dialog.  Either clicking that little “…” browse button next to the combo box or clicking...

Once again Rob Caron has sent me on a quest.  This time it is to put together a Visual Studio factoid – a list of historical facts about VS, like Why is the executable devenv.exe instead of visualstudio.exe? Is the Visual Studio logo an infinity...

By default, the Object Browser shows you all the components in the latest .NET Framework version.  But sometimes you don’t need to know about the entire world, and just want to focus on the objects in your solution. In the upper right-hand corner...

It’s time to move on to the Object Browser… You can use Ctrl+Alt+J to open the Object Browser.  If this keyboard shortcut does not work for you, check what View.ObjectBrowser is bound to under Tools Options – Environment – Keyboard. Technorati Tags...