VS and You

This is a resource for getting started with Visual Studio in devdiv!

This repo contains a trimmed down .NET console app from our csharp tutorial docs. We'll use it to demonstrate the got-to-know features of Visual Studio.

Table of Contents

• Resources
• Getting Started
  • Learning .NET
  • Source Control
  • Installation
  • Developer command prompt
• Using Visual Studio
  • New Project Dialog
  • Solution Explorer
  • Code Editor
    • Basics
    • Important General Tool Windows
    • Controlling Views and Windows
    • Symbol Navigation
    • Tools, Options
• Solving Problems in Visual Studio
  • Debugging
    • Setup
    • Basic
      • Watch Window
      • Call Stack Window
      • Breakpoints Window
    • Advanced Debugging
      • Conditional Breakpoint
      • Exception Settings
      • "Just My Code"
      • Pin tool tips in editor
  • Testing
    • Run tests from editor (CTRL+R,T)
    • Debug tests from editor (CTRL+R,CTRL+T)
    • Run from codelens
    • Test Explorer
    • Test output

Resources

• VS office hours with Mads and Scott
• VS intro series
• VS Documentation
• How to debug
• VS How
• index
• AzDo search

Getting Started

Learning .NET

• C# 101 series
• C# documentation

Source Control

• git resources
  • oh shit git!
  • official git tutorial
  • git tutorial from github
• use the commandline if you want (or whatever makes your comfortable!)
• AzDo (for closed source stuff) -> branch model

git checkout -b dev/alias/branch-name origin/master

• github (where all the open source is) -> fork model (more about that here)

git checkout -b branch-name upstream/master

Installation

• Install VS Preview: http://aka.ms/vspreview
• That is the preview version, ask what your team recommends. (Dogfood version:http://aka.ms/vsdogfood)

Developer command prompt

• Where it is
  • Searchable from the start menu
  • Script is located under C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\Common7\Tools\VsDevCmd.bat
• What is does
  • Puts a lot of tools (msbuid.exe most importantly) on your path.
  • Tells build scripts which visual studio you want to use to build
• Why you need it
  • Ensures that all the tools can be found
  • Allows you to have multiple versions of Visual Studio installed at once

Using Visual Studio

New Project Dialog

• Clone code
  • Can be used to clone a git repository if you need it
• Open project
  • Probably the most used button :) opens an existing project
• Open folder
  • Allows you to open a folder. Not as useful as open project for .NET
• Create project
  • UI to help you create a new project

Solution Explorer

• Not a file view, shows 'projects'
• Scope to this
  • "I do not need to see all these other things right now, I need to focus"
• Search and filter (CTRL+;)
  • "I know the file I am looking for is in this view"
• Right click menu de-confuse-o-tron
  • Build / Rebuild / Clean
    • "Make sure I am in a sane state"
  • Run Tests
    • "Run all the tests in this project"
  • Set as startup project
    • "This is the thing I want to launch in the debugger"

Code Editor

Basics

• Multi-instance
  • You can open as many visual studios as you want!
• Find: (CTRL+F)
  • When all else fails just search all the code files for the string 'goo'
• Intellisense: (CTRL+space)
  • Shows what is valid in certain contexts. also suggests names, offers snippets and is an all-around swell guy
• Copy/cut line (CTRL+c/CTRL+v)
  • Remove blank lines or delete large section of text
  • Move line (ALT+up/ALT+down)
    • Use with copy/paste line to save some typing
  • Line numbers
  • Go to line (CTRL+g)
    • "Build log says the exception occurred on line xxx in file yyy"
  • Add/remove bookmark (CTRL+k,CTRL+k)
• CTRL+Q
  • Search for anything if you know the name
• Rename (CTRL+R,CTRL+R)
  • Safely rename a class. method, anything (can even rename the file for you!)
• Multi-cursor (CTRL+d)
  • For complex replacements and edits (replace BankAccount with BankBuilding for example)
• Code fixes (CTRL+.)
  • Should be able to fixup errors and generally save time
• Build (CTRL+Shift+B)
  • Compile all your changes and write them to disk

Important General Tool Windows

• Error List (CTRL+shift+M)
  • Filtering categories
    • "Only show me errors please"
  • Checkboxes for error codes
    • "I want to fix this specific error everywhere first"
  • Searching
    • "How many errors are about variable 'goo'?"
• Output Window (CTRL+shift+U)
  • For when real problems happen
    • "I am going to copy and paste this into and email and ask for help"
• Bookmarks window (no short cut by default, use CTRL+Q)
  • "Let me keep track of interesting places in the code"
• Task list (CTRL+,T)
  • "Lets make sure I don't forget to do this before I submit a pull request"

Controlling Views and Windows

• Split window
  • For when the method is just too long and you need to see two parts at once
• Duplicate window (CTRL+K,O)
  • Now there are two of them
• Pin tab
  • This tab is better and more important than the others
• Window layout
  • Save and load custom window layouts
• Vertical tabs
  • You get more space for code

Symbol Navigation

• Go to: (CTRL+T)
  • Navigates you to anything you type (uses fuzzy matching)
  • "There should be a test named 'Parser Test' somewhere"
• Go to definition / Peek: (F12/ALT+F12)
  • "Where was this first created / declared?"
• Go to implementation: (CTRL+F12)
  • "Take me to the place where the functionality lives"
• Go to base: (ALT+HOME)
  • "Take me up a level"
• Find-all-references: (Shift+F12)
  • "Show me everyone that reads or writes to this"

Tools, Options

• Settings de-confuse-o-tron (CTRL+,)
  • Full Solution Analysis
    • Always analyze everything vs. just the current document
  • Intellisense for un-imported types
    • Intellisense can complete even more things
  • De-compiler
    • I want to see how this is implemented

Solving Problems in Visual Studio

Debugging

Setup

• Symbols
  • you need 'em
  • with the microsoft symbol server (http://symweb) you should be able to debug into anything!
• Default setting you should use
  • Enable "Just My Code"
    • makes debugging faster
    • turn this off if you want to debug things that are not in your solution or project
  • Enable source server support
    • Allows you to use the microsoft symbol servers
  • Enable Source Link support
    • Allows you to get symbols for open source projects
  • Suppress JIT optimization
    • Due to the way VS is architected some breakpoints will not be hit unless this in on

Basic

• Add/Remove Breakpoint (F9)
• Debug (F5)
  • Big green 'play' button
  • Launches whatever is set as the 'Startup Project'
• Step Over (F10)
  • "Go to the next line"
• Step Into (F11)
  • like go-to-implementation earlier
  • "Let me see what is happening inside this method"
• Move execution pointer
  • Just click and drag and its like it never happened!
  • Great if you accidentally stepped over something you meant step into
• Run To Cursor (CTRL+F10)
  • No need to set a breakpoint!
  • "Ok now I want to keep running the program past this loop until I get here"
• Restart (CTRL+shift+F5)
  • "I want to quickly restart this debug session"
  • Faster than stopping debugging and restarting

Watch Window (CTRL+ALT+W)

• Expression evaluator
  • Type in anything and the debugger will evaluate it for you!
  • You are able to watch the values change as you step through your program
• Search
  • Search by name or value!
• Pin
  • Make it easier to keep track of deep inner variables

Call Stack Window (CTRL+ALT+C)

• View a list of methods and the order they called each other in
• Jump to different methods

Breakpoints Window (CTRL+ALT+B)

• See all your breakpoints in one place
• Able to toggle them to "inactive" without deleting them

Advanced Debugging

Conditional Breakpoint

• Only stop your program when a condition is met
• "I want to know when in this loop the value is set to null"

Exception Settings (CTRL+ALT+E)

• Even with "Just My Code" turned on some debugging sessions can take a while to get started
• Turning off breaking on exceptions until your breakpoint is hit can save time

"Just My Code"

• By default only loads code that was built by you
• Necessary to turn this off if you want to step into code from other teams

Pin tool tips in editor

• Allows you to inspect values quickly in the editor

• Drag them around to track multiple values at once

• Modules Window (CTRL+ALT+U)

Testing

Run tests from editor (CTRL+R,T)

• Place your cursor on any class or method to run tests

Debug tests from editor (CTRL+R,CTRL+T)

• Place your cursor on any class or method to run tests

Run from codelens

Test Explorer (CTRL+E,T)

• Run options

  • You can choose to run all tests or just a few you select
  • Filter tests
    • If you have a lot of tests you can just show tests that have failed
  • Grouping

  

Test output

• If tests aren't running for some reason you can go to the output window (CTRL+shift+U) and look for the Tests category in the drop-down.