PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2008

Friday, October 3, 2008 Labels: ,
PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2008 is definitely one of the best plug-ins available for Visual Studio..
Includes things like:
  • Undo closed window

  • Collapse all projects

  • Copy path

  • Email CodeSnippet

  • Insert GUID from right-click menu

  • Copy and paste project references!

  • Open containing folder

  • Open command prompt

  • Unload project

  • Sort using statements / also removes un-used ones

  • And more..

    • Integrating TortoiseSVN with Visual Studio

    Thursday, September 11, 2008 Labels: ,
    Going back to using a file explorer separately for managing RCS, after using TFS built into Visual Studio has been a little irritating. That's not because I prefer TFS, because I don't. In fact, I hope I never have to go back to TFS again - at least until it doesn't crash continually and take minutes to perform actions that should take only seconds. And, of course TFS would have to actually perform the actions I request of it too. (But that's another post.)

    Nonetheless I've quickly become tired of switching between Total Commander and Visual Studio just to do updates and commits. I was about to resurrect my old CVS batch files again when I found an excellent set of scripts to enable TortoiseSVN from within Visual Studio.

    http://garrys-brain.blogspot.com/2007/07/tortoisesvn-and-visual-studio.html

    I have not tried all of the features yet, only the basics. But those have worked without any problems at all.

    The Windows Vista UAC

    Monday, March 19, 2007 Labels: , ,
    Everyone has probably already turned off the UAC, but I hadn't until today. I left those annoying popup dialogs, because I actually like the features it provides; not for me, but for when my kids are using my computer. And, let's be honest, once you had everything installed that you normally use, the popup dialog isn't really that annoying anymore.

    Today I found a way to disable the UAC dialogs for only Administrators. That is cool! I haven't seen that done yet, so I tried it out and it works good! You can look here for the instructions to perform this tip, courtesy of HowToGeek.com.


    Alternatively, you can create a plain-text file on your computer, name it with a .REG extension and put the following into it.

    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
    "ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin"=dword:00000000

    Then, run that file. This registry key location was also courtesy of HowToGeek.com.

    Visual Studio File Comparison Settings

    Wednesday, March 7, 2007 Labels: , , ,
    .. In other words, how to set Beyond Compare as your file comparison tool in VSTS.

    I finally got tired of the default comparison tool in Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition and went poking around to find out how to set Beyond Compare to the default instead. The default utility (WinDiff, I think?) is extremely irritating after having used BC for so many years now.

    So, on the Tools | Options dialog, click on Source Control, then Visual Studio Team Foundation Server. Now, click on the "Configure User Tools..." button. Take a look at this screen shot:



    The important things to notice are the Extension and Arguments settings. The Extension specifies which files this viewer configuration will be applied to. While the Arguments are specific to the viewer application itself, in this case Beyond Compare. You can change the extension (for instance, to .cs) to apply that configuration to only those file types.

    Compare settings:

    Extension: .*
    Operation: Compare
    Command: C:\Program Files\Beyond Compare 2\BC2.exe
    Arguments: %1 %2 /title1=%6 /title2=%7

    Merge settings:

    Extension: .*
    Operation: Merge
    Command: C:\Program Files\Beyond Compare 2\BC2.exe
    Arguments: %1 %2 /savetarget=%4 /title1=%6 /title2=%7


    (Disclaimer: I have no ties whatsoever to Scooter Software, the makers of Beyond Compare.)

    Visual Studio clipboard ring and other keyboard shortcuts

    Tuesday, February 13, 2007 Labels: , ,

    Visualstudiohacks.com is always my first choice for getting the low-down on Visual Studio. On their site I found a great shortcut key to cycle through the VS clipboard ring. In doing so, I remembered that VS actually had a clipboard ring, too. I remember being excited that they were adding one, but I must've forgotten about it. It's excellent. I found it here: http://www.visualstudiohacks.com/navtricks.

    CLIPBOARD RING

    Ctrl + Shift + V

    Cycle through items copied to clipboard

    The clipboard ring's a terrific tool for doing mass edits. Move a number of items into the clipboard ring via any Copy or Cut command, then cycle through those items as you're pasting away.

    Google Stars!

    Wednesday, November 22, 2006 Labels: , ,
    I was working with the Google Maps API again today and was thinking what other things could be done with the same technology. And, I came up with a great idea for it.

    Presenting Google Stars

    It would be totally cool to be able to navigate the stars using the Google Maps interface. I bet it wouldn't take much to get something like that up and running provided they can get the images without much hassle. You could have all sorts of overlays for constellations and regions of outer space.

    It would be enjoyable time spent for many more millions of Googlians.
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