Professional Visual Studio 2012

Chapter 7

IntelliSense and Bookmarks

WHAT’S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Improving efficiency with contextual help
• Detecting and fixing simple errors
• Reducing keystrokes
• Generating code
• Navigating source code with bookmarks

One of the design goals of Visual Studio has always been to improve the productivity of developers. IntelliSense is one of those functions that fit perfectly into this category. It has been around for more than a decade, and it has become so deeply embedded into the day-to-day world of coders that we pretty much take it for granted. And yet, from version to version, Microsoft is still able to find tweaks and improvements that make it even more useful. This chapter illustrates the many ways in which IntelliSense helps you write your code. Among the topics covered are detecting and repairing syntax errors, harnessing contextual information, and variable name completion. You’ll also learn how to set and use bookmarks in your code for easier navigation.

INTELLISENSE EXPLAINED

IntelliSense is the general term for automated help and actions in a Microsoft application. The most commonly encountered aspects of IntelliSense are those wavy lines you see under words that are not spelled correctly in Microsoft Word, or the small visual indicators in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that inform you that the contents of the particular cell do not conform to what was expected.

Even these basic indicators enable you to quickly perform related actions. Right-clicking a word with red wavy ...