Los Techies : Blogs about software and anything tech!
Jimmy Bogard » Going lean in Visual Studio

Going lean in Visual Studio


Left unchecked, Visual Studio tends to get very cluttered:

I found I don't use any of these icons.  Copy, Cut, Paste, Undo, Redo?  Those are all keyboard shortcuts.  Comment and Uncomment?  Ctrl+K+C, Ctrl+K+U.  Save All?  Ctrl+Shift+S.

No more, I'm going lean.  None of these toolbars provided me value, taking up valuable screen real estate, so I got rid of them all:

 

That's about 80 pixels I saved, and about 5 more lines of code are visible.  Beyond that, I'm no longer distracted by a hundred little icons, each hoping they'll be clicked juuuuust once to prove their worth.

Kick It on DotNetKicks.com
Posted Jul 12 2008, 02:43 PM by bogardj
Filed under:

Comments

James Thigpen wrote re: Going lean in Visual Studio
on 07-12-2008 6:47 PM

Wow thanks.  I never even realized that I never used them. They were there. I ignored them. I never questioned it.

It's kind of creepy. I think I'm a zombie.

Jeffrey Palermo (.com) wrote Going lean in Visual Studio (even more than Jimmy!)
on 07-12-2008 10:01 PM

Jimmy Bogard appropriately points out that Visual Studio gets really cluttered with toolbars that rarely get used . It's more productive to keep your hands on the keyboard, so that leaves little mousing. Even moving around the solution explorer doesn

matt wrote re: Going lean in Visual Studio
on 07-13-2008 4:54 PM

An easier way to get really lean, really fast is full screen mode.

Weekly Link Post 50 « Rhonda Tipton’s WebLog wrote Weekly Link Post 50 « Rhonda Tipton’s WebLog
on 07-13-2008 6:04 PM

Pingback from  Weekly Link Post 50 « Rhonda Tipton’s WebLog

bogardj wrote re: Going lean in Visual Studio
on 07-13-2008 6:54 PM

@matt

Yeah, the full screen is nice.  I'm not fond of alt-tabbing through programs though.  I still click the toolbar (crazy, I know).  Until I get around my alt-tab fear, it'll be tough to go full screen.

Visual Studio Hacks wrote Visual Studio Links #51
on 07-14-2008 7:19 AM

My latest in a series of the weekly, or more often, summary of interesting links I come across related to Visual Studio. Visual Studio 2008 KB: Also applied to 2005. The Visual Studio Designer does not Respect Assembly Binding Redirection. No current

matt wrote re: Going lean in Visual Studio
on 07-14-2008 8:55 AM

An intermediate step [instead of just embracing ALT-TAB] would be to use the window key to get quick and easy access to the taskbar while in VS fullscreen mode.

Gabe Moothart wrote re: Going lean in Visual Studio
on 07-14-2008 10:13 AM

to go even more lean, you can turn off the class/method drop-down boxes below your tabs, which I never use either:

Text Editor | All Languages | General | Navigation bar

Recent URLs tagged Toolbars - Urlrecorder wrote Recent URLs tagged Toolbars - Urlrecorder
on 09-23-2008 11:00 PM

Pingback from  Recent URLs tagged Toolbars - Urlrecorder

David Pritchard wrote re: Going lean in Visual Studio
on 12-18-2008 5:59 AM

An alternative to removing the toolbars altogether is to drag the one or two buttons you most use to the right side of the menu bar, where there's usually a fair bit of free space. Then just hide the regular toolbars and you have the best of both worlds!

San Antonio Real Estate wrote re: Going lean in Visual Studio
on 10-03-2009 5:35 PM

Hey this was great article.  I was not aware of everything in going lean.

Add a Comment

(required)  
(optional)
(required)  
Remember Me?

Enter the numbers above:
Copyright Los Techies 2008, 2009. All rights reserved.
Powered by Community Server (Commercial Edition), by Telligent Systems