Late March I’ve attended the Guthalon in Glasgow – a talk by Scott Guthrie, Microsoft vice president. The topic was the new features of Visual Studio 2010, ASP.NET MVC 2 and Silverlight 4 and the Windows Phone 7. On this talk Scott showed some great new features in Visual Studio 2010. I’m sharing the ten most useful of these in this article.
1. Pin variables when debugging
At debugging when hovering over variables the “Pin variable” option appears. Clicking on this makes the variable stick next to the source code until removed (and the pin stays there between debugging sessions). It is a really hand utility eliminating having to add variables to the Watch window one by one or search through the Locals window to find the variable one’s looking for. Definitely one of the top 3 new features I use on a day to day basis!
2. Box selection
While holding down the Alt key box selection can be made on the screen. At first glance this feature doesn’t seem to useful. However when typing anything in the selection the same text appears in all lines. So this selection is extremely useful for mass renaming of e.g. visibilities or anything else that involves changing the same thing in all lines.