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Visual Studio 2013: IntelliSense

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I’m back! Vacation was great but now I’m ready to get back into the swing of things. I thought we would get things going again with a look at two features of IntelliSense: Pascal Case and keywords.

 

 

Pascal Case

This is one of my favorite features! Have you ever been in a situation where you wanted to use IntelliSense to get a method but there are a TON of methods that start with same word and you have to type almost the entire method name:

5-17-2012 10-19-20 AM

 

Let's say you want the SetWindowSize Method but really, really don't want to type it out or even scroll down to get the method.  IntelliSense supports Pascal Case.  All you have to do is type "SWS":

5-17-2012 10-51-08 AM

 

This is true in a number of areas within Visual Studio now so feel free to try this in other areas (i.e. the search dialog in Solution Explorer).

 

 

 

Keywords

To show you the new feature, let’s take a look, way back, at VS2008 IntelliSense.  Notice when I type Console.Key what happens:

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IntelliSense used to be this huge alphabetical list and would just show you whatever begins with the keyword you were typing at the time. In this example, it takes me to the “key” area in the list. Notice that it then continues into the “L” and “M” and so forth. That’s great but what if I don’t know what I am looking for but I know that it has the word “key” somewhere in it?  Well, I can go search in the Object Browser, of course or I can use keyword feature that was introduced with IntelliSense for VS2010.  Watch what happens when I do the same thing in the VS2013 editor:

5-17-2012 10-14-39 AM

 

It now shows only those items that have the word “key” in them AND doesn’t care where the word is in the name of the member!  So not only do it get items that begin with “Key” but I get ANYTHING that has the word “key” in it.

 

 

 

Finally

There are some great hidden gems in the editor and these are just a couple of them. Stay tuned for many more goodies to come.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    February 12, 2015
    I'm working on a Web application using VB.NET.  Yesterday, I had intellisense in my code behind files.  I had the RAM upgraded from 4GB to 8GB.  Today, the Intellisense in the codebehind files is non-existent.  I've tried deleting the .suo file (that didn't work).  I've tried resetting the keyboard option (tools->Import and Export Settings->Reset all settings).  I've rebooted my machine several times.  Nothing has worked.  Any ideas how I can get my intellisense back?