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Tips and Tricks - Visual Studio Blog

How to Convince Your Management to Upgrade to Visual Studio 2017 for C# and C++ Developers

July 31, 2018 Jul 31, 2018 07/31/18
Kasey Uhlenhuth
Visual Studio 2017 is our best IDE yet. To help you write great code, it’s packed with new Refactorings and Quick Actions, and offers unit testing, debugging, navigation, and code style improvements. It loads solutions faster than ever, and ships with C# 7.3 and the MSVC compiler toolset that conforms to the latest C++ standards.

Snapshots on Exceptions while debugging with IntelliTrace

May 24, 2018 May 24, 2018 05/24/18
Deborah Chen
Have you ever encountered an exception in your application while debugging, and wanted to know exactly what the state of the app was at that point in time? With a new feature in IntelliTrace, you can! Learn how to use IntelliTrace's new snapshots on exceptions feature, which enables you to go back to a previous exception event and see the state of the application at the time the exception was thrown.

7 Hidden Gems in Visual Studio 2017

October 5, 2017 Oct 5, 2017 10/5/17
Anson Horton
I’ve been working on developer tooling for over 16 years, and I still love it when I find a new tip or trick that shaves seconds off a repetitive task. The set below are features that I see infrequently used but can save loads of time! Gem #1 - Expression Evaluator Format Specifiers The part of the debugger that processes the language ...

7 More Lesser-known Debugging Tactics for Visual Studio

September 18, 2017 Sep 18, 2017 09/18/17
Kaycee Anderson
So, you really liked learning about 7 Lesser Known Debugging Hacks for Visual Studio? Good news is that there is always more to learn! The Visual Studio debugger is an enchanting creature that can save you loads of time while finding and fixing issues in your application. It is bursting with tools that can make debugging easier… if you know ...

Visual Studio Hidden Gems

July 29, 2016 Jul 29, 2016 07/29/16
Visual Studio Blog
Visual Studio is a powerful IDE with hundreds of productivity features to empower developers to do more, faster. I joined the Visual Studio team about a year ago, and here are some of the great things I’ve discovered. These are all in Visual Studio 2015, and some have been there for a few versions now so you’ll find them in previous ...

Tools for Apache Cordova – Samples and Docs

June 1, 2015 Jun 1, 2015 06/1/15
Visual Studio Blog
Open source code is the norm for so many developers these days, and unsurprisingly, so is open documentation. From Azure to TypeScript, public repositories have become a go-to place for sharing samples, tutorials, and “tips and tricks” so that everyone can learn and contribute together as a community. So beginning today, we’...

Debugging Tips and Tricks

May 22, 2015 May 22, 2015 05/22/15
Visual Studio Blog
Unfortunately bugs are a part of software development, and despite our best efforts to write software correctly from the start we spend a lot of time in the debugger. While bugs are an unfortunate fact of life, finding them doesn’t have to be as painful as it often is. For you problem-solvers out there, the Visual Studio 2015 debugger ...

15 minute blog post: A Hidden Feature in Visual Studio 2010

June 5, 2010 Jun 5, 2010 06/5/10
Visual Studio Blog
The sunset in Seattle was spectacular this evening. My wife and I climbed the water tower in Volunteer Park to look across the Sound as the sun dipped behind the Olympic mountains and, in the space of a few minutes, the sky turned from blue to orange and pink. We both agreed that the Emerald City and its surroundings can be breathtakingly ...

Tips and Tricks: Apply (or Don’t Apply) Cut or Copy commands to blank lines

March 25, 2010 Mar 25, 2010 03/25/10
Visual Studio Blog
As you may know, Visual Studio’s cut and copy commands are useful for more than just selected text.  If you invoke them when there is no selection, VS will cut or copy your entire line, which saves you the trouble of selecting the line before adding it to the clipboard.  Although a lot of developers find this helpful, we ...