Editor Convenience Commands and Features
The Code Editor for Visual Studio .NET has several new commands and convenience features to facilitate the development process.
Word Wrap When text extends beyond the visible code pane, it can automatically wrap to the next line. For more information, see Managing Code Formatting.
Incremental Search An incremental search is performed on a letter-by-letter basis as you type the characters. To activate an incremental search, press CTRL+I.
Navigate Backward / Navigate Forward buttons The Navigate Backward and Navigate Forward buttons are used to jump to the previous or the next location. For more information, see Navigating Code and Text.
Code Outlining Select a region of code and hide it under a single line, and then expand or collapse that region. For more information, see Outlining and Hiding Code.
Collapse to Definitions Collapses the members of all types so that all of the members belonging to a type are clearly seen. All procedures (methods, functions, ifdefs, code blocks, and so on) are collapsed and hidden under their definitions, making it easier to read and navigate throughout your code. To collapse code to definitions, press CTRL+M and then CTRL+O. or choose the command on the Outlining menu. For more information, see Outlining and Hiding Code.
Collapse Block / Collapse All In (Visual C++ .NET) Hide selected code under the first selected line, and then expand or collapse it by clicking the symbol next to it. To collapse the current block, place the insertion point in the block and choose Collapse Block on the Outlining menu. For more information, see Outlining and Hiding Code.
Clipboard Ring When text is cut or copied, the fragments are stored in an environment clipboard known as the Clipboard Ring where you can pick and choose among them and paste back into your code. For more information, see Using the Clipboard Ring.
IntelliSense When a function or statement is entered into the Code Editor, its complete syntax and arguments are shown in a ToolTip. In addition, languages that support early binding display available functions, statements, constants, and other values in a list that you can choose from. For more information, see IntelliSense.
Line numbering Display line numbers in code by clicking that option in Tools, Options, Text Editor. You can do this on a per-language basis or for all languages. After line numbering has been activated, you can go to a particular line by clicking Go To in the Edit menu, or by pressing CTRL+G. For more information, see Navigating Code and Text.
Hyperlinks in Comments You can now embed hyperlink URLs in your comment lines. This feature is useful, for example, for adding a link to a web page that contains a code spec or a Help topic.
Squiggles Squiggles are wavy lines, similar to the squiggles in Microsoft Word, that appear beneath code errors when developing applications in Visual Studio .NET. There are two types of squiggles: red and blue. For Visual C# .NET, red squiggles appear while typing code (or when opening a file) and indicate a syntax error. They disappear immediately after the error is fixed. Blue squiggles appear after code compilation and indicate semantic errors detected by the compiler, such as a class name that does not exist in the current context. Blue squiggles disappear after the offending text is deleted and the code recompiled. Both types of errors are added to the Task List.
For Visual Basic .NET and Visual C++ .NET, the line-by-line syntax error checker handles red squiggles (syntax errors) automatically. Blue squiggles indicate compiler errors. Blue squiggles associated with Visual Basic compiler errors disappear immediately after the error is fixed. Currently, you cannot disable squiggles, but you will be able to do so in a future version of Visual Studio .NET.