Chapter 3. Options and Customizations

Now that you're familiar with the general layout of Visual Studio 2008, it's time to learn how you can customize the IDE to suit your working style. In this chapter you will learn how to manipulate tool windows, optimize the code window for maximum viewing space, and change fonts and colors to reduce developer fatigue.

As Visual Studio has grown, so too has the number of settings that you can adjust in order to optimize your development experience. Unfortunately, unless you've periodically spent time sifting through the Options dialog (Tools Options), it's likely that you've overlooked one or two settings that might be important. Through the course of this chapter you will see a number of recommendations of settings you might want to investigate further.

A number of Visual Studio add-ins will add their own nodes to the Options dialog as this provides a one-stop shop for configuring settings within Visual Studio. Note also that some developer setting profiles, as selected in Chapter 1, will show only a cut-down list of options. In this case, checking the Advanced checkbox will show the complete list of available options.