Anders Hesselbom

The ups and downs of Visual Studio 2010: Auto list members

2010-01-01

In Visual Studio 2010, the auto list members feature is much more intelligent than in previous versions. For example, assuming that X is an object with a visible function called DoSomeWork, in earlier versions of Visual Studio, you would have to know that the method started with Do to find it in the list. If you didn’t know that, you would have to scroll through the list of members and try to recall what you are looking for, or search in the object browser. Now, if you type X.Work, Visual Studio lists DoSomeWork as a suggestion, because matching is done within the name, not only from the beginning of the name. Also, you type an acronym of the function name. DSW would match DoSomeWork.

Previous versions of Visual Studio applied a “suggest and complete” policy, which is the default in Visual Studio 2010. This is usually the most effected mode. If you are aiming to call the DoSomeWork function, you can type something like X.DoSo and then what ever character you was going to type thereafter, likely an opening parenthesis. The problem with the “suggest and complete” policy shows up when you’re trying to call a function that isn’t implemented yet. The text editor will force your typing to be a call to something other than you are aiming at, something that already exists, at least if the not-yet-existing member has a name that is a subset of an existing name. I always end up grabbing my computer mouse when this happens. This is one example where the “suggest only” policy can be useful. This mode lets you type whatever you want, because it will not force you to choose from something in the list.

To toggle completion mode, press Ctrl+Alt+Space or look at the IntelliSense sub menu under the Edit menu. Just as the call hierarchy feature, this feature is available no matter what language you’re using, but (at least in the Beta) it only works in the C# editor, not the Visual Basic editor.

Now, there is no reason to have a mouse connected to the computer anymore. Thank you, Microsoft!

Categories: Visual Studio 10

One response to “The ups and downs of Visual Studio 2010: Auto list members”

1. bdndk says:

   2010-04-23 at 19:43

   Awesome post – just what I was looking for!
   The “suggest only” in VS2010 was driving me insane. Having programmed a lot in VS2005, I’ve gotten used to writing only a few letters, then completing the word with a period and then continuing with the next word.
   I can see how “suggest only” is useful, but I just don’t program that way 🙂

   Oh, and I didn’t even realize there was an IntelliSense menu under the Edit menu. I was looking under Tools > Options all the time.