Sara Ford's WebLog

Did you know… You can press Ctrl+Shift+F9 to delete all breakpoints - #266

You can press Ctrl+Shift+F9, bound to Debug.DeleteAllBreakpoints to delete all the breakpoints you’ve created in your solution.  The command is found under the Debug menu.

The option is also found on the Breakpoints window in the toolbar.

Speaking at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention this Friday

If there ever were a “Sara needs a hug” moment… I’m doing a talk on Friday called Towards a Stronger Open Source Ecosystem.  It’s a story about what I’ve seen and ideas I have for the future.  I actually put together this abstract 2 years ago, so it isn’t necessarily a talk about the future of CodePlex, as my day job would led you to believe.

Here’s the abstract.  Wish me luck!

“Code speaks louder than words” is a fundamental philosophy of the open source community, because developers use code to discuss code, not words. Imagine a code review over email that did not contain a single line of code. The conversation would be lost in translation. Code is the universal language in the developer ecosystem, allowing us developers to communicate with one another.

But yet, we don’t communicate universally today. We define ourselves by our business models, our developer tools, our technologies, hence defining who we converse with. But imagine if there were no definitions or boundaries, where all developers could effectively engage together. Imagine an open source ecosystem that included all developers, regardless of platform, language, or development environment.

This talk will cover go over a roadmap for striving towards this stronger open source ecosystem through current infrastructure enhancements, fostering community growth through discoverability, project incubations and sponsorships, and paving the ways for proprietary products to evaluate various methods of going open source.

Did you know… You can use Ctrl+F9 to enable or disable a breakpoint - #265

In the general development settings, I didn’t see this command under the Debug menu.  So, in case you want to use the keyboard to enable or disable a breakpoint, you can Ctrl+F9, which is bound to the command Debug.EnabledBreakpoint.  Note that you won’t find a Debug.DisableBreakpoint, since this is handled by the enabled command.

A disabled breakpoint will still get saved in your Breakpoints window, but will be ignored while debugging.

Did you know… You can use IntelliSense to verify your breakpoint name in the New Breakpoint window - #264

In the New Breakpoint window, there’s a checkbox “Use IntelliSense to verify the function name.”  Just as you would expect, this does a sanity check to ensure the function name is valid in your project.

For example, if the function name doesn’t match an overload, you’ll get prompted to choose which method you really meant.

Or if the function doesn’t exist,

Now, let’s say you don’t need its help and uncheck the option.  In the case above, a breakpoint will be inserted in all overloads for the function.  Or if you type in a function that doesn’t exist, it won’t get inserted into the code, but will get created in the Breakpoints window.

Did you know… You can press Ctrl+B to set a breakpoint at the desired function - #263

In case you want to set a breakpoint at a given function, and not at the current line, you don’t have to search for the function name to hit F9.  You can press Ctrl+B (general development settings) to do a Debug – Break at Function.

This command will bring up the Breakpoint window.

Here you can type in the name of the function you wish to set a new breakpoint at.

Did you know… You can press F9 to set a breakpoint on the current line - #262

Using the General Development Settings, the command Debug.ToggleBreakpoint will set (or delete) the breakpoint on the current line, in case you don’t want to take your hands off the keyboard.

Did you know… You can press Ctrl+Alt+B to open the Breakpoint Window - #261

Under Debug – Windows, you’ll find the Breakpoint window. 

Using the General Development Settings, the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+Alt+B, which is bound to the command Debug.Breakpoints, in case your keyboard shortcut mileage varies

Did you know… You can set a breakpoint by clicking in the indicator margin - #260

Ah, time to get up and stretch.  We’re in a new series, and it’s all about debugging.

Let’s start off with the very basics.  I know the majority of you already know this, but remember someone probably had to show you how to do this at some point.  So, this is for all of you new to Visual Studio and/or coding and haven’t seen this.

You can set a breakpoint on any applicable line by clicking in the indicator margin, as illustrated

and clicking here will insert the breakpoint.

Did you know… You can export all of your Toolbox customizations? - #259

In earlier Toolbox tips, I talked about how you can customize your Toolbox.  Now you can export those customizations to your .vssettings file.

At least if you ever reset your toolbox, found on the Toolbox context menu, you’ll be able to import your customizations again.

Did you know… What the Start Page "Commands” setting really control? - #258

I just can’t seem to get Pearl Jam’s “Black” out of my head…

When you go to Tools – Import / Export Settings – Export (or Import when you have a .vssettings file that contains this category), and you look at the description for the General Settings - Start Page Commands settings category, it says, “Startup behavior… and settings for the Start Page.”  This is a bug, since this description is exactly the same as the Options – Environment – Startup description.

What this category should really say is, “Represents the commands that appear on the Start Page.”  For example, on the Start Page, if you go to the Getting Started section, you’ll see a list of commands.  What commands appear here comes from this category.

Sorry, you can’t create your own commands here.  I’ve asked and I got lost pretty quickly on what the steps might include.

Did you know… How to turn on and off Simplified Tools Options - #257

Depending on the development settings you chose at first launch, like Visual Basic, you may see the Tools / Options dialog appear with a shortened page list and a checkbox at the bottom left corner.

And if you check Show all settings, you’ll see the standard full list of all Tools Options.

This checkbox is only enabled when the Simplified Tools / Options category in Tools – Import / Export Settings is imported with the option SupportsSimpleToolsOptions set to true.  Okay, it might be official now that i know way too much about the Visual Studio IDE.

In other words, let’s say that your in the Visual Basic development settings and you don’t want to see this checkbox.  You can go to Tools – Import / Export Settings – Import and choose the General Development Settings “Simplified Tools Options” category to import.  This will remove the checkbox (until you reset to the VB settings or whatever).

Did you know… What option is saved in the Output Window Options? - #256

Kinda makes me wonder why the category wasn’t called Output Window Option instead of Options.  Reading the category description made me smile, as it states that the Word Wrap option will be exported. 

At first, i really didn’t believe this, so i exported the category, and sure enough, all i found was…

<PropertyValue name="OutputWindowWordWrap">true</PropertyValue>

Yep, that means this entire category controls this one WordWrap option.

Did you know… You can bring over your Visual Studio 2005 settings either at First Launch or Anytime? - #255

In 2008, there’s an option in the First Launch dialog to bring over your Visual Studio 2005 settings. 

If you had Visual Studio 2005 previously installed, you’ll still have your Visual Studio 2005 settings in your Documents folder.  This includes your auto-save current settings file from 2005. 

The first launch detects this and gives you an option to choose this file as My Previous Settings.  VS will reset as much as applicable, depending on how different your installs of VS 2005 and VS 2008 are.

Did you know… What the “Allow VS to download RSS content” does on the First Launch dialog and how to change it back? - #254

On the first launch dialog, you may have noticed this checkbox for opting in for VS to download RSS content.

This checkbox controls the content on the Start page.  If you uncheck this checkbox, start VS with your favorite .vssettings file, and go to the Start page, you’ll see the following in the RSS feed that you need to enable downloading RSS feed content.

Of course, you can just following the directions on the start page and click the link to download the content.  But, did you know… you can go to Tools – Options – Environment – Startup and check the Download content every: option to get the RSS content downloaded.

Did you know… What the Visual Studio “First Launch” dialog does? - #253

I still plan to cover the more interesting categories in the Import / Export settings feature, but after a week of it, i wanted to break it up and talk about something new.

Because Visual Studio no longer uses its factory defaults, you have to choose a development environment settings file to get started.  The dialog is called, creatively, the “First Launch dialog,” since it appears the first time Visual Studio is launched.

Here’s the entire dialog again, if it’s been a while since you’ve seen it.

Choosing any of these settings will do a reset against the factory defaults, so you are in a known state when VS starts.