ASP.NET 3.5 For Dummies®

2.3. Tweaking Your Development Environment

In the preceding section, you used the development environment with its default settings. Microsoft's choices aren't always the best, so the first thing you want to do is configure the IDE for ease of use.

2.3.1. Showing all settings

For some reason, the people who created the IDE shield us from many customization features. To make sure all the settings are available, follow these steps:

1. In Visual Web Developer Express, choose ToolsOptions.

2. In the bottom left corner of the Options window, check Show All Settings box.

   Presto! You go from a few measly settings to more options than you can change in a day!

2.3.2. Unhiding advanced members

Even though you've expanded your options dramatically by showing all settings, Microsoft is still holding back. When you're working with automatic statement completion (IntelliSense), the default settings hide many statements. To unhide the advanced members, follow these steps:

1. Open the Options window (ToolsOptions).

2. Expand the Text Editor node and select All Languages.

3. In the Statement Completion area, clear Hide Advanced Members box.

Before you close the Options window, you may want to deselect Enable Single-click ...