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This topic lists the new and enhanced productivity, navigation, and community features available with this release of Visual Studio. For information on additional new features in this release, see What's New in Visual Studio 2005.
Predefined settings consist of customizations made to the integrated development environment (IDE) based on different types of development activities and your own customizations. These customizations include window configurations, hiding or exposing menu commands, menu and menu command name changes, keyboard shortcuts, and changing defaults for tools options to name a few.
You are asked to select a predefined setting the first time that you start Visual Studio. Any further customizations you make to the IDE, such as adding a shortcut key combination or changing the docking location of a window, are tracked and stored along with the predefined settings. You can reset your current settings by choosing Import and Export Settings on the Tools menu. For more information about the optimizations included in the predefined settings, see Visual Studio Settings.
You can now export the settings you use in the IDE to a file and use that file on other computers. Use the Import and Export Settings wizard, available on the Tools menu, to save all of your environment settings or just specific categories of settings such as fonts and colors or editor settings. From this same wizard, you can import a settings file created by you or a trusted co-worker. For more information, see How to: Share Settings Between Computers.
The following features are available in this release:
Text display Multiple lines of text can be displayed in any row. For example, an entire description can be displayed.
Column sorting A sort triangle has been added to column headers to show that the column is sorted and whether sorting is ascending or descending.
Multiple-column sorting To sort on a second column, press and hold the Shift key and click the second column heading.
Show Columns command Specify which columns to display by using the Show Columns command on the context menu for the Task List.
Move columns Columns can be moved by using the drag-and-drop method.
Show files By default, only the file name is displayed, not the path. To change the default, select Options from the Tools menu, and then choose Environment. On the Task List page, unselect Hide full file paths.
For more information, see Task List (Visual Studio).
The Error List helps you speed application development. In the Error List window, you can:
Display the Errors, Warnings, and Messages produced as you edit and compile code.
Find syntax errors noted by IntelliSense.
Find deployment errors, certain Static Analysis errors, and errors detected while applying Enterprise Template policies.
Double-click any error message entry to open the file where the problem occurs, and move to the error location.
Filter which entries are displayed, and which columns of information appear for each entry.
For more information, see Error List Window.
The Code and Text editor supports a subset of the shortcut keys available in Brief and Emacs editors. For more information, see Brief Default Shortcut Keys and Emacs Default Shortcut Keys.
This release includes improved visual feedback for window docking. As you drag a tool window across a frame where it can be docked, a guide diamond appears. The four arrows of the diamond point toward the edges of the enclosing frame. Whenever the window you are dragging reaches a position where it can be docked, the arrow that points toward the edge where it can be fastened darkens.
Figure 1: Guide Diamond used to dock windows
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If the window can join a tabbed group, the center of the diamond darkens. To dock the window, release the mouse. The guide diamond makes it much easier to place your active windows just where you want them. For more information, see How to: Arrange and Dock Windows.
Visual Studio now includes a way to switch between open windows and files available in the IDE, similar to the ALT + TAB feature in Windows.
Figure 2: IDE Navigator
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The Window.NextDocumentWindowNav command can be mapped to a shortcut key combination to allow you to move among open files in the editor as well as open tool windows. Depending on the settings you use, Window.NextDocumentWindowNav might be automatically mapped to CTRL + TAB. For more information, see How to: Navigate Within the Integrated Development Environment.
The Start Page has been completely redesigned for this release. The new Start Page consists of a single page with four separate information areas: Open an Existing Project, Getting Started, Headlines, and News. To display the Start Page, on the View menu, choose Start Page.
As in previous versions, you can open recently modified projects, or quickly create projects as well as view certain Help topics. You can now also access product and event information from Microsoft as well as RSS feeds from within Visual Studio. For more information, see Start Page.
This release makes it even easier to access resources in the developer community. A new menu, called Community, appears in the IDE. From this menu, you can post questions to MSDN newsgroups, send product feedback to Microsoft, access useful Web sites, and search online for components to use in your applications. For more information, see Interacting with Other Developers.
You can also create and share custom project templates, code snippets, starter kits, and other items with the developer community. For more information, see Working with Community Components.