DotNetKicks.com : Stories kicked by scottcate

Should We Return Null From Our Methods?

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:15:06 GMT

I read a interesting article recently about the potential perils of Null Check Hell. The author's suggestion? Stop allowing any of your methods to return nulls, ever . No nulls returned, no null checks necessary. Problem solved, right?

VSTricks Video #62 Display parameter info for a function

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:24:43 GMT

Intellisense is great - probably the greatest thing ever invented to help developers productivity. But ListMembers isn't always what you want. If you have CTRL+Space embedded in your brain telling Visual Studio to "Show my what I can put here" you're getting a ListMembers popup. What you sometimes want is a ListParameters Tooltip, and this video shows you how.

VSTricks Video #61 (Presenters Must!) Increase the Editor Tooltip Size

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:24:02 GMT

If you're presenting Visual Studio on a projector, one of the first things you probably do is downsize to 1024X768, and edit your font size to be larger so the people in the back can read your screen. BUT . most presenters forget to also change the Tooltip font size. Did you know that could be done? This video shows you how.

VSTricks Video #60 All and Common tabs on Intellisense (VB Only)

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:23:06 GMT

Once statement completion is up in Visual Basic context (sorry C-Sharpers) there is a tabbed view of options. One tab is Common (the default) and one tab is (ALL). You can switch between these tab from teh Keyboard - and this video quickly shows you how.

VSTricks Video #59 Resize the Statement Completion Window

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:07:09 GMT

This video shows that you can resize the statement completion dialog box from any direction, once it's open, grab a side or a corner.

VSTricks Video #58 How to increase the statement completion font size

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:06:19 GMT

Go to Tools - Options - Fonts and Colors. This is where you're used to changing the font size, especially those of us that present with Visual Studio on a projector. When you change the editor font size to 20 for the audience to be able to read it, only the editor changes. This video will show you how to increase the font size on the Intellisence window that pops up for statement complete.

VSTricks Video #57 [Ctrl]+[J] invokes statement completion

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:05:49 GMT

In the default general development settings, the keyboard shortcut to invoke statement completion is [CTRL]+[J]. The keyboard shortcut is bound to Edit.ListMembers, so you may need to confirm what your keyboard shortcut is. This video talks about the multiple ways of getting the statement complete window to popup, and how your keyboard bindings may effect the different options.

VSTricks Video #56 Show Shortcut Keys in Visual Studio Toolbar Tooltip

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:04:41 GMT

I try to use the keyboard exclusively in Visual Studio. Sometimes I don't know (or have forgotten) the keyboard shortcut for something, but I know there is one. If you hover over the icon, on an icon bar, you'll see the tooltip. If this tooltip doesn't show up, or doesn't have the keyboard shortcut in it, this video will show you how to turn them on.

VSTricks Video #55 Navigate Bookmark folders in the Bookmark Window

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:04:07 GMT

If you're crazy about dropping bookmarks in your project, then you'll love this ability to manage them. There's a Bookmark Tool Window (or Panel) that allows you to organize and arrange your bookmarks. You can create one or many folders with name, and then jump between bookmarks just in that folder. Once you've organized your bookmarks, you can use similar bookmark navigation keyboard shortcuts to navigate within the folder by adding the Shift button to the chord.

VSTricks Video #54 How to set a bookmark and navigate among them

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:03:13 GMT

Trick number #30 also talked about Bookmarks, but this time I go into a little more detail as to why your keyboard bindings might be different than what you're seeing in the video. The short version is that you probably chose Visual Basic or Visual C# when you installed Visual Studio and each of these has a different set of keyboard binding. The video shows you how to figure out your bindings, and spends a little more time on the bookmarking system built into Visual Studio.

VSTricks Video #53 Enable Emacs and Brief editor emulations?

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:27:17 GMT

In VS 2005, we introduced Emacs and Brief emulations into the editor. Go to Tools - Options - Environment - Keyboard, and then drop down the Apply the following additional keyboard mapping scheme: Choose either Brief or Emacs.

VSTricks Video #52 How to enable single click URL navigation

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:26:51 GMT

This is enabled by default for most editors, but just in case you're not able to click on a URL, here's what you do. Go to Tools - Options - Text Editor - All Languages - General, and click on Enable single-click URL navigation.

VSTricks Video #51 How to cycle through the Studio clipboard ring

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:26:07 GMT

You can cycle through the past 20 items you've either cut or copied onto the clipboard via Ctrl+Shift+V. Pretty cool, huh? I didn't know what to draw for "cycle through clipboard ring," so I looked around my office and saw a dog paw print, and though, hey, i can draw that left-handed with a mouse.

VSTricks Video #50 How not to accidentally copy a blank line

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:25:29 GMT

We all use CTRL+C and CTRL+V everyday, 1000 times. It's one of the first things you have to learn as a programmer to keep you hands on the keyboard. It's easy to sometimes press CTRL+C again, when in fact it's time to Paste, so you really meant to press CTRL+V. Visual Studio will allow you to copy a blank line. So it what you're trying to paste, is onto a new blank line, and you accidentally press CTRL+C, you'll copy the blank line, then your CTRL+V is lost. (Oh but tip #51 Shows you the clipboard ring). Anyway - this tip tells Studio to not copy blank lines.

VSTricks Video #48 Undo and Redo magic (with multiple levels)

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:24:50 GMT

Yeah, ya, we all know [CTRL]+[Z], [CTRL]+[Z], [CTRL]+[Z], [CTRL]+[Z], Undo, Undo, Undo. Oops too far.. Redo, Redo, Redo. There is a better way to multiple undo / redo. This video shows you how.

VSTricks Video #47 Swapping Anchor points (THIS IS COOL!) in Studio

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:24:16 GMT

Swapping anchor points. This one left me wondering for a few minutes, but afer I figured it out, it was very nice. Many times I've selected the wrong text by a line or character or two. Only to have to reselect the entire selection. This video trick shows you how to expand your selction on the top of bottom - no matter which direction you selected up or down. It is one of my favorites so far.

VSTricks Video #46 Cut/Move/Delete Current line in Visual Studio

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:22:57 GMT

Do you recognize this sequence? Home. Shift. Up or Down. [CTRL]+[X] or [Delete] There are many better ways to cut or delete your current line of code/markeup/css/xaml/whatever. This Video Trick shows you how.

VSTricks Video #45 Jump cursor to top or bottom of screen

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:21:32 GMT

Wanna get to the top of your screen, but you know PgUp is too far? How about the bottom? This is a cool trick that I find myself using all the time. It saves 100's of ups and downs a day, because you can always get to the place you're interested in faster than up,up,up,up,up,up,up,up. BONUS Content. At the end of this video, we talk about debugging your keyboard so if some of your keystrokes don't work as described, you can use Visual Studio to find out why!

VSTricks Video #44 Delete whole word (or whitespace) at a time forward

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:19:59 GMT

We all edit. Coders really are just really smart typists right? We make mistakes. We edit other peoples stuff, we have brain farts. These tricks teach you to delete fast and accurate. Delete words or whitespace groups forward or backwards. I use this all the time. These are tricks you should add to you daily arsenal. Tricks that you can tease your friends about because they don't

VSTricks Video #43 Select from Cursor to last "Go Back" marker in Visu

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:19:28 GMT

This is a quick trick that I've started using the move my cursor to the last place, making a selection along the way. It's kind of weird to explain in text without a 100 images. Video rules!!!

VSTricks Video #42 Navigate to off screen tabs in Visual Studio

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:14:16 GMT

To many files open. [ALT]+[TAB] works, but here is an alternative. I use this quite often, but there is a little tiny glyph update that I didn't notice before. Acutally I have noticed it, I just didn't register the fact that it changed once in a while. Now I know why. Do you?

VSTricks Video #41 Forward and Backward navigation in Visual Studio

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:13:41 GMT

These are great. I already knew the keyboard shortcuts, but I didn't know the toolbar tricks. For once (this is unusual) the tool bar offers a tiny bit of visual help that superceeds the use of the keybaord only tricks. Confused? That's why I like video. You will too. Watch video #41

VSTricks Video Trick#040 (With Mystery) Go To Line facts

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:38:16 GMT

It turns out that there are many many ways to use the Go To Line feature. This video uses a couple, as well as tried to uncover a mystery. I'm going to need your help with this one. Please leave comments if you know the answer. What's the mystery you ask? Watch the video :)

VSTricks Video Trick#39 Middle Mouse button support in Visual Studio

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:37:23 GMT

Middle Button support in Visual Studio. What does it so? Watch this ...

VSTricks Video Trick#038 Rid Horizontal and Vertical Scroll Bars

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:36:16 GMT

Do the horizontal and|or vertical scroll bars drive you nuts? Are they in the way? Taking up to much space? None of the above? All of the above? If you have ever had the need to make them dissapear this video trick #38 shows you how.