Visual Studio Hacks

Customize Syntax Coloring #12

Chapter 2, Master the Editor

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HACK

Use a Third-Party Editor

Although Visual Studio includes a number of nice editors, sometimes a

third-party application does it better. I have a particular liking for a CSS edi-

tor application called TopStyle (http://www.bradsoft.com), and whenever I

work with CSS files, I use it.

To configure TopStyle as an editor in Visual Studio, all I need to do is open

a .css file, use the Open With option, and from the Open With dialog, click

the Add button. I then see the Add Program dialog, which is shown in

Figure 2-26.

From the Add Program dialog, I can browse for the program executable and

also give the application a friendly name, which will be shown in the editor

list. After adding TopStyle as an editor, I can then click OK to return to the

Open With dialog and there set TopStyle as the default editor for .css files by

selecting it in the editor list and clicking the Set As Default button. Now

whenever I double-click on a .css file, Visual Studio will launch an instance of

TopStyle with the file open in it. If the file is under source control, you will

need to manually check it out before opening it with the third-party editor.

HACK

#12

Customize Syntax Coloring Hack #12

Specify the keywords you want Visual Studio to colorize, even in PHP!

When working with Visual Studio, you will notice that language keywords

are highlighted in blue. This ...