Turn off auto-collapsing for VB.NET in Visual Studio?

Question

The auto-collapse feature for code properties is neat AFTER you've got your properties all worked out, but while you're still editing them I find the feature to be REALLY annoying.

How can you disable it?

(I'm in VS2008 if it makes a difference)

Edit: I'm not talking about the Property Window... I'm talking about properties in code.

Private _firstName As String
Public Property FirstName() As String Implements IPerson.FirstName
    Get
     Return _firstName
    End Get
    Set(ByVal value As String)
     _firstName = value
    End Set
End Property

displays as

Public Property FirstName()...

Answer 1

When the window is open, click on the pin in the upper right hand corner (the middle icon between the X and the down arrow). When you're done, click it again to enable auto hide again.

Answer 2

From the EDIT menu, choose OUTLINING, STOP OUTLINING. You can also use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+M, CTRL+P.

Answer 3

The stop outlining option never works for me. Also the Ctrl+M, Ctrl+M option only seems to work if I have the region collapsed highlighted. Ctrl+M, Ctrl+P does nothing for me. I went into options and unchecked the enter Outlining mode, but that didn't do anything either. At one point, when I had VS 2005 (now I have 2008), I managed to turn it off through a regedit hack. Though once I had to re-install VS 2005 and forgot the hack, so I've been living with this ever since. It's ultra annoying when you are looking for something where you are looking for a pattern of code and not the specific words of the code. I don't know why it is, but I do that a lot. Any helpwould be appreciated. Ty.

Answer 4

This seems to be a "feature" of DevX Refactor for VB, which I also find terribly annoying. I found this thread on their forum which provides a couple of suggested solutions:

• Add a key to the registry to make the DevExpress menu visible in VS and then go to the options page to disable auto-collapse or
• Install a newer version of the add-in (Release 9.1.4 or above) which apparently doesn't behave this way anymore.