Switch to C# IDE

[carstenht]

Hi
When you first start Visual Studio, you can costumize it for different languages. I Choosed c++, but now i want to switch back to C# - anyone know how to do this?

[jmcilhinney]

If you want to change any IDE options then open the Options dialogue.

[carstenht]

yeah, but i cant find the setting that changes the ide setup back to C# settings

[jmcilhinney]

What settings are you talking about exactly?

[mendhak]

He's talking about the layout. Like there's a VB layout, and a Web developer layout.

[penagate]

It's awfully obfuscated.

http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford/archi...28/413158.aspx

Last comment to that post seems to have the best solution.

[jmcilhinney]

Just searched in the MSDN library for change ide settings and got a match entitled "Customizing the Development Environment". That topic provides a link to another named "Working with Settings" described like so:

Information about how settings work in the IDE, importing and exporting settings, and changing base settings.

That topic provides a link to a topic entitled "How to: Change Select Settings" that contains the following information"

You can apply a sub-set of settings from a different settings collection to your current settings to create a more customized development environment. For more information about predefined settings, see Visual Studio Settings.

To change select settings
On the Tools menu, choose Import and Export Settings.

On Welcome to the Import and Export Settings Wizard page, click Import selected environment settings and then click Next.

On the Save Current Settings page, select Yes, save my current settings, and then click Next.

In Which collection of settings do you want to import, select a settings collection from the list and then click Next.

In Which settings do you want to import, expand the list and select only the categories or category items you want to apply to your current settings.

Click Finish.

The Reset Complete page lists any errors associated with resetting your settings under Details.

MSDN does it again.

[carstenht]

Thx guys They sure did a great job hiding that feature

[jmcilhinney]

But they also did a good job of making finding it relatively easy if you read the documentation. You should take that away and make a point of always reading the documentation in future.

[carstenht]

Shouldn't be nescesary to read to documentation to find the fakcing welcome screen :rolleyes

[mendhak]

carst does have a point there. Simple features shouldn't have to be difficult, else we're just a bunch of Linux wannabes.

[jmcilhinney]

And it's not difficult. The option was one level deep in the menu structure and the operation took a few mouse clicks. I don't really see how that could be considered "hidden" or "difficult". The fact that the title "Import and Export Settings" was not immediately recognised as the appropriate option is not really Microsoft's fault. They could have named it "Click here if you selected the wrong programming language when you installed Visual Studio" but that wouldn't really describe its actual purpose.

If I wanted to change settings in the IDE I'd immediately go to the help and search for change ide settings. When I did that I got the information required in a couple of clicks and less than a minute's reading. Again, not exactly "hidden" or "difficult". I've written help files myself for applications and then had user's ignore them and contact me directly and ask how to do something that I had already spent time explaining in the documentation. If you don't look you'll never find.

[mendhak]

The fact that the title "Import and Export Settings" was not immediately recognised as the appropriate option is not really Microsoft's fault. They could have named it "Click here if you selected the wrong programming language when you installed Visual Studio" but that wouldn't really describe its actual purpose.

"Visual Studio Layout"

[jmcilhinney]

Those settings files contain much more than just physical layout, so that name would be misleading to those who wanted to change things other than layout.

Anyway, there seems to be some implication that to use C++ you have to set the IDE to the C++ settings and to use C# you have to set the IDE to the C# settings. That's not the case at all. Those settings files that are supplied with the IDE are just the defaults that Microsoft think are optimal for developers in each language. You can develop in any language with any settings. Plus you can change any individual setting through the Options dialogue, as I first suggested. If you've customised your settings through the Options dialogue and you want to transfer them to another machine then you can export them through that same wizard and then import them elsewhere. That's what that wizard does: import and export settings files. The fact that you want to import one of the standard settings files doesn't change its purpose, so it's name is actually completely accurate for the task it perfroms.