I recently discovered this feature while working on large MS Word documents. In Word, it is possible to open the same file twice, so that the same document appears in two Windows. This is very helpful when you need to reference one part of the document while you are working on another part of the document elsewhere in the file.

Then when working on a large C# file, I wondered if Visual Studio could do the same thing. It turns out it can! With the large file open, click “New Window” under the Window menu.

See example below. I wasn’t sure how to quickly create a large file, and I didn’t spend much time thinking about it, so it is pretty silly. BigClass.cs contains a method that adds the integer 1 to a list thousands of times. On the right at line 82, I have added an important line that the programmer needs to reference later. On the Left, the programmer is working down on line 7736, and is able to reference line 82 in the window on the right. What else is cool is that if you start typing text in one window, the text appears automatically in the other window.

Update: Visual Studio Community 2019 – Git Integration
Click link above for Visual Studio 2019 and later with new Git Menu (preview features enabled)
The git integration with Visual studio is great. It is able to find all the git repositories on your machine and show them all nicely in the team explorer.

However, when working with git, it is very useful to see the actual command line output. Using the GUI can obscure what is actually going on.

TFVC source control has the same problem, as when getting the latest changes, you don’t automatically see everything that’s happening, unless you take the time to open the Output window and navigate to the TFVC Output, where with the default settings you only see updated files in a list.

The command line is what really lets you see the details of what’s happening, as well as giving you the ability to try out all the commands and options, not all of which are available from within visual studio.

Below we can see all the details associated with a git pull from a remote repository. Insertions, deletions, and associated counts are neatly laid out and colored in green and red.

How to Quickly Open the Command Prompt with the Project Directory
To quickly get started with the command prompt, it is very helpful to be able to open it directly in the path for the current project. To do this right click on the local git repository in VS and select open command prompt..

This opens a cmd.exe window opened to the project directory. I don’t like having to use tools outside the IDE unless absolutely necessary, as the context switching can slow productivity. I have started using the extension below which integrates a terminal windows.

Better Integration with a marketplace Extension (vsix)

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=dos-cafe.WhackWhackTerminal

Update for Visual Studio 2019 – Seamless Git Integration

UPDATE: The above extension is no longer needed, as Visual Studio now integrates a terminal via the Developer Command Prompt. At the moment, I think I do prefer the powershell terminal, as the command highlighting and colors seem to work better.

Starting with Version 16.6, git functionality is accessible from within Visual Studio without installing an additional extension.

A new Git menu appears in the window title bar. I had some difficulty getting this menu to appear in my environment, but I eventually got it to work by toggling the “New git user experience” in the Preview Features of settings. For most users, the Git menu should appear by default by installing the new version of Visual Studio.

Enabling the new git experience

I don’t like the way that we no longer get pretty list of local repos right in the teams window like this..

This same list of repositories is now only available from the new Git Menu -> Local Repositories. The repositories that appear here are dependent on the path set in the Tools -> Options -> Source Control -> Git Global Settings -> Default Location

New List of Local Repositories with the new git menu

And Now, in order to open the command prompt with the working directory at the root of a git repo, a two step process is now required. First, open the repo by clicking it in the local repo menu above. Second, return to the Git menu, and select “Open in Command Prompt”

This is more difficult than it was before, but I will be on the lookout for improvements to this and will keep you all posted..