Visual Studio Hacks

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Chapter 4, Customizing Visual Studio

#28 Package Your Toolbox Settings

HACK

Using the toolbox as a method to store code snippets is an effective way to

reduce coding time and increase your own consistency.

Hacking the Hack

Now that you have customized the toolbox, it is important to be able to

move those settings between systems. To move toolbox settings from one

machine to another, you need to copy a single file from your profile on the

current machine to your profile on the target machine. The file is called

toolbox.tbd and is located in the following directory:

\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\

Microsoft\VisualStudio\<7.1>\

This file can be copied to the target system, and all of your toolbox settings

will be moved to the new system when you restart Visual Studio. Keep in

mind that for custom controls, any assemblies that the toolbox references

would need to be copied as well.

HACK

#28

Package Your Toolbox Settings Hack #28

If you want to be able to deploy the same toolbox settings on a bunch of

different machines, you can write a program to add custom controls or code

snippets to the toolbox.

One of the big challenges of team development is creating consistent code

across all developers. One way to encourage consistent code is to provide

each developer with the same set of controls and code snippets. This way,

each individual developer has all the same tools