Common Editor Issues in VS 2010 Beta1

VSEditor — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:29:00 GMT

Thank you to everyone who has downloaded and tried VS 2010 Beta1 so far! In the two weeks since Beta1 was released, you’ve sent us tons of feedback that has helped us fix some of the most commonly reported bugs. This post details frequently-encountered bugs and their status, in no particular order:

Background Color of the Editor is always white

Status: Patch available for download here
The Bug: Setting a custom background color for the editor works once, but every new editor window opens with a white background. This can be fixed by going to Tools->Options->Environment->Fonts and Colors and simply clicking OK, but it’s annoying to have to do that every time you open a new tab or restart VS.
The Solution: This should be fixed for the next release of VS 2010. For Beta1, there is an extension written by a member of the VS Editor team as a patch that will allow custom background colors to persist. You can find it in VS by going to Tools->Extension Manager and searching for the "BackgroundPatchExtension," or download it from a web browser here. Once you install it, just make sure it is enabled in the Extension Manager, and your background color should be applied correctly.

Outlining Highlight Color flickers or makes text unreadable on dark backgrounds

Status: Fix in progress
The Bug: The highlight color when you mouse over an outlining region is not currently configurable, and the default color makes text difficult to read on dark backgrounds. Some users also notice that the highlight causes a flicker effect when moving the mouse from the editor to the toolbox, line number margin, breakpoint margin, or other margins on the left.
The Solution: We plan to choose a better default color that should make the highlight better for dark backgrounds. We also plan to make the highlight color configurable, so you can choose a custom color that works with your preferred color scheme. This also gives the ability to avoid the flicker by setting the highlight color equal to your editor background color. You should see these changes in the next release of VS 2010.

Some Fonts do not work, and Text in the Editor may appear blurry

Status: Fix in progress
The Bug: Some fonts, custom and available in Tools->Options, will display as Consolas instead of the desired font. Text in the Editor, tooltips, or IntelliSense may also appear blurry to some users.
The Solution: Because the new VS 2010 Editor is based on WPF, its font rendering has different advantages and limitations than the editor in previous versions. WPF supports only TrueType vector-based fonts, so selecting a bitmap or non-TrueType font will cause the editor to revert to the default font, i.e. Consolas. Some of the fonts in the Beta1 list in Tools->Options->Environment->Fonts and Colors are not TrueType fonts and will also not work, and we have now removed these fonts from the list for future versions of VS 2010.

We are also working with the WPF team to make significant improvements to the Editor's font rendering for the final version of VS 2010, which should reduce the blurriness of text in the Editor, tool windows, IntelliSense, and tooltips. In the meantime, it may help to run the ClearType tuning tool to improve font clarity in the VS Editor and other applications. You can also track the WPF team’s work on font rendering.

Mouse-Wheel Scrolling in the Editor is slow

Status: Fixed
The Bug: When using the mouse wheel, the editor scrolls very slowly or sometimes not at all. Other applications scroll as expected.
The Solution: The editor was not respecting system-wide settings for the mouse wheel as configured in the Control Panel. This has been fixed and should work correctly in the next release of VS 2010.

Scrolling with a Laptop Touchpad does not work

Status: Fix in progress by the WPF team
The Bug: When you try to scroll the editor with a laptop’s touchpad, nothing happens.
The Solution: None yet, but the WPF team is working on this issue. You can track its status here.

Editor does not scroll horizontally when selecting text with Ctrl+Shift+arrow keys

Status: Fixed
The Bug: When using Ctrl+Shift+arrow to select text, arrowing off the screen does not cause the editor to scroll horizontally. The caret goes off the screen, but you can’t see where it went.
The Solution: This has been fixed and should work correctly in the next release of VS 2010. The workaround for Beta1 is to use Shift+arrow instead of Ctrl+Shift+arrow or to select out-of-view text with the mouse.

Zoom: Scrollbars should not zoom, and there is no way to quickly return to 100% zoom

Status: Fix in progress
The Bug: When using Ctrl+mouse wheel zooming, scrollbars also zoom and quickly become too large or small. There is also no way to quickly return to 100% zoom.
The Solution: We are planning significant improvements to the zoom feature that should fix both of these issues for the next release of VS 2010. You can track these issues here and here.

Mouse Cursor becomes invisible

Status: Fixed
The Bug: When using Visual Studio, the mouse cursor sometimes becomes invisible, seemingly at random.
The Solution: We discovered and fixed a bug in the Regular Expression Editor extension, available on the Visual Studio Gallery or through the Extension Manager in VS. We believe that this bug is isolated to the RegEx Editor extension and is now fixed. If you downloaded v1.0 of the RegEx Editor it and are seeing this problem, please uninstall and reinstall it or use the Updates section of the Extension Manager to download the fixed version.

First item in a Smart Tag is not selected by default

Status: Fixed
The Bug: Invoking a smart tag by clicking on it or pressing Ctrl+. brings up the tag, but the first item in the correction list is not selected by default.
The Solution: This has been fixed and should work correctly in the next release of VS 2010.

Arrow keys do not move caret on wrapped lines

Status: Fixed
The Bug: When word wrap is enabled, pressing the up and down arrows may not move the caret.
The Solution: This has been fixed and should work correctly in the next release of VS 2010. For Beta1, the workaround is to disable word wrap or use the mouse to navigate away from a wrapped line.

Context Menu location is wrong

Status: Fixed
The Bug: Right-clicking in the editor causes the context menu to appear at the location of the blinking caret instead of the location of the mouse cursor.
The Solution: This has been fixed and should work correctly in the next release of VS 2010.

If you’re seeing other issues, please post a comment, check the Beta1 Editor forum, or file a new bug and we’ll investigate. Your feedback helps us find and fix bugs faster and improve Visual Studio, so keep it coming!

Brittany Behrens
Program Manager, VS Platform Team

How do you use Tab Size and Indent Size?

VSEditor — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:32:00 GMT

The Editor team wants to build the best product possible, and we need your help! This week, the team would like to ask for direct feedback on how you use tab size and indent size. Tab size is the amount of space each tab occupies, while indent size is the amount of space automatically inserted for each level of indentation at the left of a line. Both options can be found in Visual Studio under ToolsàOptionsàText Editorà[Your Language]àTabs, and by default both are set to 4 spaces.

For example, if you turn on visible whitespace with tab size = indent size = 4, your code would look like this:

But with tab size = 4 and indent size = 8, the same code would look like this:

One of the many advantages of the new editor is that unlike previous versions, Visual Studio 2010 can support multiple font faces and multiple font heights. With this new capability, there are more choices than ever for how to format your code, which led the Editor team to some interesting design questions. We want to make sure we design features that look great and feel natural in your most important use cases. With that in mind, we'd like to know:

· What are your preferred tab & indent size settings? Why do you choose that particular configuration?

· Do you keep tabs or insert spaces?

· Is there a case where you use different tab & indent sizes? If so, please tell us the scenario.

Feel free to leave a comment or use the Email link. The more we understand about how you use Visual Studio, the more we can improve it. And stay tuned for the next post, when we’ll give you a sneak peek and a chance to tell us what you think about an updated UI for code outlining.

Brittany Behrens
Program Manager, VS Platform Team

New Editor, New Font: 10-pt Consolas

VSEditor — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:18:00 GMT

To complete the VS 2010 Editor’s new look, we’re updating the default font to 10-pt Consolas! It’s a fixed-width font that Microsoft’s typography experts designed specifically for developers, so it’s great for reading and writing code. Consolas also has proportions that are closer to normal text than Courier New, the default for VS 2005 and 2008, making it more readable while still maintaining monospaced width. Here’s a side-by-side comparison:

You’ll see the new default font in the upcoming VS 2010 beta, but the Editor team is also interested in your feedback now. Although it’s new to the default role, Consolas has been around for a few years, so you can try it in your current version of Visual Studio. If you’re running Windows Vista, you already have Consolas installed; just go to ToolsàOptionsàEnvironmentàFonts and Colors in Visual Studio and change the font. If not, it’s available as a free download from Microsoft here.

To see the best results, I strongly recommend turning on ClearType in Windows XP or Vista before trying Consolas. ClearType improves font quality and readability in WPF and can be optimized for your display. For instructions on how to enable and configure it, check out Microsoft’s ClearType tuner here.

I hope you’ll enjoy Consolas’s natural readability for coding in VS. As always, please use the comments and e-mail link to send us your thoughts. Love the new font? Have ideas to improve it? Let us know!

Brittany Behrens
Program Manager, VS Platform Team

Visual Studio Editor Blog : options

Common Editor Issues in VS 2010 Beta1

Background Color of the Editor is always white

Outlining Highlight Color flickers or makes text unreadable on dark backgrounds

Some Fonts do not work, and Text in the Editor may appear blurry

Mouse-Wheel Scrolling in the Editor is slow

Scrolling with a Laptop Touchpad does not work

Editor does not scroll horizontally when selecting text with Ctrl+Shift+arrow keys

Zoom: Scrollbars should not zoom, and there is no way to quickly return to 100% zoom

Mouse Cursor becomes invisible

First item in a Smart Tag is not selected by default

Arrow keys do not move caret on wrapped lines

Context Menu location is wrong

How do you use Tab Size and Indent Size?

New Editor, New Font: 10-pt Consolas