See the name of a control in the IDE

[Alain Dekker]

I'm using VB.NET in the 2003 IDE. If I have a form with dozens of controls
on it, I'd like an easy eay to see the name of the control currently
selected, but this is not easy in the 2003 IDE. I have to open the
properties window and scroll down to the Name member and then fix it in
place, and then I cannot use that for anything else...etc, etc.

Am I missing something here? Is there an option in the IDE to display the
name of a control in, say, the status bar? If not, could someone from MS
please consider this very useful (and presumably easy to implement) feature.

Thanks,
Alain

[PvdG42]

Post by Alain Dekker
I'm using VB.NET in the 2003 IDE. If I have a form with dozens of controls
on it, I'd like an easy eay to see the name of the control currently
selected, but this is not easy in the 2003 IDE. I have to open the
properties window and scroll down to the Name member and then fix it in
place, and then I cannot use that for anything else...etc, etc.
Am I missing something here? Is there an option in the IDE to display the
name of a control in, say, the status bar? If not, could someone from MS
please consider this very useful (and presumably easy to implement) feature.
Thanks,
Alain

VS 2008 improves things by automatically displaying the Name property of the
selected control in the properties window, regardless of where the
properties window scrolling was for the previously selected control. So, no
scrolling to see the selected control name.

VS 2010 Beta 2 further improves things by providing a drop down list at the
top of the properties window which shows all controls with the name property
of each in boldface. Each time you select a control, the list auto-scrolls
to display the name of the selected control.

[PvdG42]

Post by PvdG42

Post by Alain Dekker
I'm using VB.NET in the 2003 IDE. If I have a form with dozens of
controls on it, I'd like an easy eay to see the name of the control
currently selected, but this is not easy in the 2003 IDE. I have to open
the properties window and scroll down to the Name member and then fix it
in place, and then I cannot use that for anything else...etc, etc.
Am I missing something here? Is there an option in the IDE to display the
name of a control in, say, the status bar? If not, could someone from MS
please consider this very useful (and presumably easy to implement) feature.
Thanks,
Alain

VS 2008 improves things by automatically displaying the Name property of
the selected control in the properties window, regardless of where the
properties window scrolling was for the previously selected control. So,
no scrolling to see the selected control name.
VS 2010 Beta 2 further improves things by providing a drop down list at
the top of the properties window which shows all controls with the name
property of each in boldface. Each time you select a control, the list
auto-scrolls to display the name of the selected control.

FWIW, the VS 2010 Beta 2 feature is also in the RC, so I'm very confident it
will be in the RTM. Thanks for starting this thread. I'd either not noticed
the improvement, or taken it for granted until you asked.

[Alain Dekker]

Thanks for the replies...nothing I can do in VS2003.NET then?

Bummer...
Alain

Post by PvdG42

Post by PvdG42

Post by Alain Dekker
I'm using VB.NET in the 2003 IDE. If I have a form with dozens of
controls on it, I'd like an easy eay to see the name of the control
currently selected, but this is not easy in the 2003 IDE. I have to open
the properties window and scroll down to the Name member and then fix it
in place, and then I cannot use that for anything else...etc, etc.
Am I missing something here? Is there an option in the IDE to display
the name of a control in, say, the status bar? If not, could someone
from MS please consider this very useful (and presumably easy to
implement) feature.
Thanks,
Alain

VS 2008 improves things by automatically displaying the Name property of
the selected control in the properties window, regardless of where the
properties window scrolling was for the previously selected control. So,
no scrolling to see the selected control name.
VS 2010 Beta 2 further improves things by providing a drop down list at
the top of the properties window which shows all controls with the name
property of each in boldface. Each time you select a control, the list
auto-scrolls to display the name of the selected control.

FWIW, the VS 2010 Beta 2 feature is also in the RC, so I'm very confident
it will be in the RTM. Thanks for starting this thread. I'd either not
noticed the improvement, or taken it for granted until you asked.