Options, Text Editor, C/C++, Formatting
Note
This article applies to Visual Studio 2015. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here
Lets you change the default behavior of the Code Editor when you are programming in C or C++.
To access this page, in the Options dialog box, in the left pane, expand Text Editor, expand C/C++, and then click Formatting.
Note
Your computer might show different names or locations for some of the Visual Studio user interface elements in the following instructions. The Visual Studio edition that you have and the settings that you use determine these elements. For more information, see Customizing Development Settings in Visual Studio.
C/C++ Options
Enable automatic Quick Info ToolTips Enables or disables the Quick Info IntelliSense feature.
Inactive Code
Show Inactive Code Blocks
Code that is inactive due to #ifdef declarations are colorized differently to help you identify it.
Disable Inactive Code Opacity Inactive code can be identified by using color instead of transparency.
Inactive Code Opacity Percent The degree of opacity for inactive code blocks can be customized.
Indentation
Indent Braces
You can configure how braces are aligned when you press ENTER after you begin a code block, for example, a function or a for loop. The braces can either be aligned with the first character of the code block or indented.
Automatic Indentation On Tab You can configure what happens on the current code line when you press TAB. Either the line is indented or a tab is inserted.
Miscellaneous
Enumerate the comments in the Task List window The editor can scan open source files for preset words in the comments. It creates an entry in the Task List window for any keywords that it finds.
Highlight Matching Tokens When the cursor is next to a brace, the editor can highlight the matching brace so that you can more easily see the contained code.
Outlining
Enter outlining mode when files open When you bring a file into the text editor, you can enable the outlining feature. For more information, see Outlining. When this option is selected, the outlining feature is enabled when you open a file.
Automatic outlining of #pragma region blocks When this option is selected, automatic outlining for pragma directives is enabled. This lets you expand or collapse pragma region blocks in outlining mode.
Automatic outlining of statement blocks When this option is selected, automatic outlining is enabled for the following statement constructs: