Window Management and
Customization
Before Visual Studio .NET, Visual Basic
developers had a drastically different editing environment than
Visual C++ developers. Add to that the different environments
included within Visual InterDev, and you can see that combining all
of these languages into a single IDE would be difficult. This is a
primary reason why Visual Studio .NET employs developer
profiles.
Customized Interfaces with Visual
Studio .NET's "Developer Profiles"
Immediately afterinstalling Visual Studio .NET,
you are presented with the developer profile page within the
embedded browser of the IDE, as shown in Figure 1.1. The profile
page enables you to choose from a list of preset window layouts
based on the type of developer you are.
By choosing the Visual C# Developer profile, the
window layout will be organized in a way that is most common for C#
developers, as shown in Figure 1.2. I, however, will be using the
default Visual Studio Developer profile throughout this book. You
are free to change what you use; just keep in mind that what you
see in the book and what you see within your IDE will be different,
although the terminology will be the same.
Configuring Keyboard Shortcuts
When many developers first install Visual Studio
.NET, the first thing they want to do is make sure that the
keyboard shortcuts and
menus
work in a way they're familiar with.
One thing some Visual C++ 6.0 developers may notice is that the F7
key doesn't build the project.
If you really can't get used to the new keyboard
layout, but still want to retain the default window layout, you can
change the keyboard scheme by selecting Visual C++ 6 (or the
language you are comfortable with) from the Keyboard Scheme
drop-down list. Likewise, if you prefer the default keyboard scheme
but would like to revert back to the window layout from your
previous language's IDE, you can choose the window layout you
prefer from the corresponding drop-down list.
Filtering the MSDN Help
MSDN documentation is a vast library of
knowledge, samples, articles, and reference materials. Sifting
through this huge collection of information can sometimes be a
daunting task. Documentation is extremely helpful, but too much can
make searching extremely difficult and unproductive.
Help filters can remove documentation from your
view so that you minimize and false positive search results. You
can specify the Help filter that you might need, but my advice is
to not use any filters, at least not yet. You can think of the MSDN
documentation as a miniWorld Wide Web on your computer. It
comprises hundreds of hyperlinked documents, forming a relationally
and hierarchically organized collection of knowledge. What happens
when you sit down to look something up on the Internet? You
open
your browser and immediately a hyperlink to an unrelated story
catches your interest. You follow and after skimming it over
quickly, another link catches your eye. By the time you know it,
you're reading stories about Brazilian cockroaches when all you
really wanted to know was the current prices of stocks in your
portfolio.
Although you won't read about Brazilian
cockroaches in MSDN, you will occasionally skim a document that you
weren't intending to look for. In doing so, you will learn about
some unrelated technology you weren't familiar with before.
TIP
You can choose to leave the MSDN help filter
enabled so that only the exact type of information you are looking
for will appear in your results. However, leaving the filter off
might
prove
more useful than you think. While you are looking for a
reference to a particular keyword, you might find some information
that you will find useful in the future. If you have the spare time
to do it,
randomly
sifting through the MSDN documentation can be
enlightening.
Maximizing Your Viewable Area
Many developers prefer to have the resolution of
their monitor set very high. They do this for one real reason:
screen real estate. If you're like many other programmers, you
typically have many programs running at one time and continually
switch back and forth between them. With a high monitor resolution,
you can arrange many
windows
in a way that enables you to easily
view each one; but at lower
resolutions
, you are usually limited to
working with one program at a time.
Visual Studio .NET contains many useful features
that enable you to effectively organize the child windows of the
IDE in such a way that it is possible for you to work
efficiently
and still have
convenient
access to the necessary development tools
contained within those windows. The source code window is the most
important window within the IDE and as such should not be obscured
by any supporting tools. If you've ever programmed with Visual C++
6.0 and entered a debugging session that required the use of many
debugging windows, you would almost lose all sight of your source
windowespecially on
monitors
with low resolutions. To solve this
problem, Visual Studio .NET employs the use of docking and
auto-hiding windows.
Using Visual Studio .NET 2003's
Dockable
Windows
There are two types of windows within the Visual
Studio .NET IDE. The first type is a document window and is
considered
the centerpiece of your current project. This includes
such things as your source code or the current resource that you
are editing. The other type of window is used for support and is
known as a tool window. It is this type of window that allows
docking to the IDE. A window is docked when it fits within a
certain area of the IDE like a puzzle piece and does not obscure
your current document window. A tool window can be
docked
on any
side of the document window.
Open Visual Studio .NET and locate the Solution
Explorer window that is currently docked to the right side of the
IDE (if your developer profile is currently set to Visual Studio
Developer). Right-click on the Solution Explorer window and select
the Floating item from the contextual menu, as shown in Figure 1.3.
By doing this, you have disabled the docking feature for that
window and can now move the window to any location. Note, however,
that a floating window can obscure any windows underneath itsuch as
your current document window.
Right-click on the Solution Explorer tool
window's title bar again, but this time select the Dockable menu
item. You'll notice that even though you changed that window to
dockable, it still floats above the other windows. A tool window
can be dockable, but that doesn't
necessarily
mean that it has to
be docked to a certain location on the IDE. To dock a tool window,
you must drag that window to the location that you want to dock it
to. Click on the title bar of the Solution Explorer window and drag
it to the right side of the screen again. When you do this, you can
see various gray
frames
that signify where the window will be
docked after you've released the mouse button.
There are different places within the IDE that a
window can be docked. You can dock a tool window to another tool
window as shown in Figure 1.4. In that figure, you can see three
tool windows docked side by side. You might notice that some tool
windows enter into a tabbed layout when they are docked, which is
the default docking layout for the Solution Explorer and Class View
windows. To add another tool window to a group of tabbed tool
windows, drag the title bar of the tool window you want to dock
onto the tabs of the
group
; you will see a new tab created as you
do this. You can then drag that tab to specify which location you
want the tabbed tool window to occupy when the mouse button is
released.
Auto-Hiding Windows
The ability to dock windows is a great feature
and will help in maximizing your view of the current document
window. However, you can achieve more screen real estate by
auto-hiding the docked tool windows within the IDE.
Auto-hiding works by minimizing a tool window to
the edge of the screen when you are not using it. After the tool
window has been minimized, it is
replaced
by a tab with the
name
of
the window and the document window is subsequently expanded to take
advantage of the extra space that is available. By default, Visual
Studio .NET contains two tool windows that are auto-hidden. If you
look at the left side of the IDE, you can see two tabs labeled
Server Explorer and Toolbox, as shown in Figure 1.5. If you move
your mouse cursor over one of the tabs, the corresponding tool
window will be maximized and the document window will adjust
accordingly
.
To auto-hide a tool window, click the push pin
located in the upper-right corner of the tool window. Locate the
Server Explorer tool window and if it is not docked to the edge of
the IDE, dock it now. When you click on the push pin in the right
corner of that window, a couple of things will happen with the
window layout. First, the Solution Explorer window is enlarged and
fills the entire height of the IDE. Because the window is
auto-hidden, it can use that space when it is maximized because
that space will normally be used for something else when the tool
window is minimized. So, not only do you maximize the document
window when a tool window is auto-hidden, you also maximize the
space that the tool window occupies when it is active and
viewable.
TIP
You can auto-hide all the current tool windows
with just a few clicks. Select Window, Auto Hide All to make all
the current tool windows auto-hidden. Take note, however, that
there is no corresponding Unhide All feature; you will have to
manually unhide each of the tool windows separately.
Another action that occurs when you auto-hide a
tool window happens if the tool window was part of a tabbed group
of docked windows. After you've turned on the auto-hide feature of
a tool window within a tabbed group of docked tool windows, the
entire group becomes auto-hidden, as shown in Figure 1.6. This
might not be what you expected, but you can customize this
behavior.
To change the behavior of auto-hiding a group of
tabbed and docked tool windows so that only a single window is
auto-hidden, select Tools, Options from the main menu. In the
General settings item, which should be selected by default, check
the check box labeled Auto Hide Button Affects Active Tab Only, as
shown in Figure 1.7. By changing this setting, only the currently
active tab will be auto-hidden, rather than the entire group.
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