Tip/Trick: How to Show Active File in Solution Explorer (Visual Studio 2008)

Many thanks to “Ronald Widha” by blogging about this Visual Studio simple trick that allows you to show the active files in Visual Studio (one little feature that I use a lot when working with Eclipse):

One of the most annoying thing about Visual Studio default settings is the fact that the Solution Explorer doesn’t track what files you are currently looking at. Alot of developers thought this was the only way, and had to bear the pain of flicking through the Solution Explorer while scratching their head to figure out ‘where the hell I put this file?’.

There is actually a setting in Visual Studio that does this automatically.

Tools – Options – Projects and Solutions – Track Active Item in Solution Explorer

There is actually a setting in Visual Studio that does this automatically.
Tools – Options – Projects and Solutions – Track Active Item in Solution Explorer
Just tick the box..and you’re all set!

Just tick the box..and you’re all set!

source: http://www.ronaldwidha.net/2008/11/26/visual-studio-show-active-file-in-solution-explorer/

Thanks Ronald!

Tip/Trick: Optimizing ASP.NET Build Time with Dynamic Compilation (optimizeCompilations=”true”)

If you are experiencing slow builds with ASP.NET projects or want to learn how to speed them up please read on.

Microsoft has introduced a new optimizeCompilations switch in ASP.NET that can greatly improve the compilation speed in some scenarios. You can read this blog post to understand the overall idea, study a more detailed explanation about Dynamic Compilation here or simply follow these 2 easy steps:

1) Install this hot-fix:

2) Update your web.config as follows:

Add optimizeCompilations=”true” to your <compilation …> tag. Below is an example:

<system.web>
....
<compilation debug="true" optimizeCompilations="true">
....
</compilation>
....
</system.web>

And you’re done! Next time you change something inside the App_code or even a dll inside the bin folder you might not have to wait the entire site to rebuild.

Important note: this approach speeds things up but you might get some weird errors when you start changing some code signatures or restructuring dlls.In this case, all you need to do is a simple “rebuild project/solution” inside your Visual Studio to get things straight again.