Visual Studio Hacks

Add Guidelines to the Text Editor #10

Chapter 2, Master the Editor

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HACK

From the Regions Dialog, you can select the region you want to add the

selected code to or you can decide to add it to a new region and click the

Add New Region checkbox. This is particularly useful if you are adding a

new property to the class; instead of opening the existing region and

appending it to the end, you can write the property anywhere you want and

then select it and move it to that region.

The Regions Add-in is a valuable tool that makes working with regions even

easier than it already is.

HACK

#10

Add Guidelines to the Text Editor Hack #10

If you’ve got to have everything line up just right, turn on guidelines and get

everything pixel perfect.

One of the features missing from the text editor in Visual Studio is the abil-

ity to add vertical guidelines. Vertical guidelines are thin vertical lines that

can be used as visual guides when aligning text. This feature is not actually

missing though—using a simple registry hack, you can add up to 13 differ-

ent guidelines to Visual Studio’s text editor.

When editing the registry, you should always back up your

registry or use the alternative registry method

[Hack #30].

To add guidelines:

1. Close Visual Studio.

2. Open regedit (Start

➝ Run ➝ type regedit).

Figure 2-20. Regions Dialog

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Chapter 2, Master the Editor

#10 Add Guidelines to the Text Editor

HACK

3. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\ ...