This is one of those, "whoa… i never knew this!" until someone shows you how to do it.
Go to Tools – Customize. Now the Customize dialog box pops up. Note that this is a semi-modal dialog (my made-up term, although there’s probably a real term for it somewhere). A modal dialog is where you can only click inside the dialog. This is true most of the time, but some dialog boxes are non-modal (where you can click outside the dialog box and focus is retained outside).
Work with me here. Take your mouse and try to click+drag a button on any toolbar around here, there, and everywhere. Trust me, it will work. Crazy, huh?
Note that you can even duplicate items by doing a Ctrl+Drag. The duplicate item can even live on a different toolbar!
Technorati tags: VS2005Tip, VS2008Tip
Right-click anywhere on the toolbar area, either on a toolbar itself or in the unused portion of the toolbar space. You’ll be presented with a context menu of all available toolbars. Click on any toolbar to have it appear.
Note that all buttons may be disabled (as shown in the picture) if you are not in the right "environment context," meaning that you don’t have the right window or editor or designer showing to enable the buttons (hence why it was probably hidden to begin with).
But play, experiment, and see if this helps.
It’s funny to read blog posts from a year ago, like my OSCON 2008 Here I come… I hope! Well, it is that time of year again for OSCON submissions, thinkweek papers, and LE MARDI GRAS!!
I’ve submitted two talks for OSCON 2008:
Wish me luck that my papers get accepted!
And yes, I’ve written another thinkweek paper. Going to submit in the morning, after i add the final touches.
And of course, now that i’ve submitted my OSCON and Thinkweek papers, the time honored tradition says I must fly home for le carnival. Mardi Gras – so much fun! And a geek dinner in Mississippi for Lundi Gras! (Fat Monday).
Now where’s my slice of mardi gras king cake…
Yep, we’re in the "did you know…" toolbars series.
Like yesterday’s tip focused on the grip control on the far left-end of a toolbar, today’s tip focuses on the chevron control located on the far right-end of a toolbar.
Click on the chevron control to drop down the menu, and select Add or Remove Buttons. You’ll be given a choice to either customize the buttons on the given tool window or to bring up the Tools – Customize dialog. Select the current tool window to see a list of buttons to enable or disable.
Sometimes, there’s no room to see all of the available buttons, even if they are showing, when two toolbars occupy the same line in the editor. In that case, you’ll see these "available, showing," but "no room to display" buttons in the chevron control drop down menu. Or just check out the below pictures to get what i’m trying to say.
Technorati tags: VS2005Tip, VS2008Tip
First, thanks to Chris Woodruff who tirelessly hosted podcast after podcast after podcast the entire 3 days. Thanks again Chris for doing a podcast with me! And also my thanks to Michael Kimsal for hosting the open source open space podcast and the great lunchtime conversation where we chatted about whether a person could Intellectual Property without going to law school or getting the J.D. I’m still trying to figure out the answer to this one.
CodeMash 2008 Interview with Sara Ford
Chris Woodruff talks with Sara Ford, Microsoft CodePlex PM, about her past, working at Microsoft, her leading CodePlex and why she attended CodeMash 2008. CodePlex is Microsoft’s open source project hosting web site. Sara Ford’s blog is http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford/ and CodePlex can be found at http://www.codeplex.com/
All Chris’s podcasts can be found at http://codemash.podbean.com/
Codemash Open Spaces – Open Source on .NET
I [Michael] had a fun time recording this ‘open spaces’ meeting at Codemash last week. This was led by Joe Brinkman from the DotNetNuke project, and joining us was Kevin Devine from the Euclid Public Library, Sara Ford from Codeplex @ Microsoft, Steven Harman from the Subtext project and Jay Wren from the Castle project (among other things, I’m sure). The sound was *decent*, although there was a shortage of mics. I also accidentally dropped Joe’s volume on a few occasions, but overall it felt like a great chat, so here it is. Topics include the pros and cons of getting Contributor License Agreements in place on an open source project, building community, a bit of good natured back and forth on Microsoft’s role in all this, interesting comparisons to the Java community, and more. BTW, this is just a sample of many of the informal chats that happen for 2 days @ codemash. If you like these types of discussions, join us next year!
All Michael’s podcasts can be found at http://webdevradio.com/
First, you’ll want to put the mouse over the grip control. You’ll notice that the mouse control changes to a 4-directional pointer.
Then hold the primary mouse button down and drag the toolbar out. It’ll pop out into a floating state, as illustrated below. You can also resize in a way similar to a table.
Technorati tags: VS2005Tip, VS2008Tip
At CodeMash 2008, I had an incredible opportunity to meet 1-1 with many various users of CodePlex, from those who run projects to those who download them. Thanks to everyone for their valuable input and making the time to discuss their ideas with me. I had an awesome time, and will always try to do an open space at every conference I go to from now on.
Instead of just posting the feedback I received, our dev lead Jonathan suggested I enter work items for everyone to vote on. So…
Without further ado, here’s what I’ve entered based on our conversations at CodeMash for you to vote on. Of course, please vote on whatever else you find interesting in the feature wish list.
And BTW, CodePlex is hiring developers!
For those who follow my Visual Studio Tip of the Day series, feature prioritization for CodePlex is actually a part of my real day job =)
There are four different window layout states
Both your tool window layouts and your command bar customizations are saved in these states.
When you shut down Visual Studio in any state, all 4 states are saved. Additionally, all 4 states are saved when you do a Tools – Import Export Settings – Export – Window Layouts.
Technorati tags: VS2005Tip, VS2008Tip
