Hiding the regions in Visual Studio

Question

I know VS code folding issues are an old chestnut, but I haven't been able to find this in all the other discussions I have browsed through:

We have a team of C# guys, some love regions and others hate them and we don't seem to have much middle ground to work with.

Is there a plug- or add-in for VS that will just 'hide' the regions? So that those that want them will see them as normal, but the people that install the add-in and view a .cs file the regions just aren't there, as if they don't exist.

I can see this might be an issue when moving code around that it might cause issues of certain methods being in or outside of the wrong region, but that might be a tradeoff the team is happy with...

Answer 1

I don't know of any plugin like that, honestly. However, with VSTO, it's very easy to write one yourself.

Answer 2

Personally, I write a VS macro (Tools > Macro) to expand all regions on file open.

(Heh, second VS macro question in two minutes).

-Oisin

Answer 3

I used to like and use regions, but now I've seen the light!

If you find yourself wanting to hide code, then surely it belongs in another class, or needs reorganising in some way?

Answer 4

This is somewhat... sleazy, and may have side-effects but:

Tools-->Options-->Environment-->Fonts and Colors-->Preprocessor Keyword Change the foreground and background colours to white (or whatever your default background is).

You wont see other preprocessor keywords though.

Answer 5

There are shortcut keys to deal with them:

Ctrl+M, Ctrl+M  Collapse or expand the block you're currently in.
Ctrl+M, Ctrl+O  Collapse all blocks in the file
Ctrl+M, Ctrl+L  Expand all blocks in the file
Ctrl+M, Ctrl+P  Stop outlining mode. (Ctrl+M, Ctrl+O resumes) 

See http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001147.html

Answer 6

I just wanted to write the same question!

We have regions everywhere in the code and I absolutely hate them.

You know why? You are somewhere in the code, you click F12 (go to definition), VS opens the file, points the cursor to the right place and the next second collapses the file. Terrific. So I have to click "Stop outlining", return to the original file, point to the object and make it "Go to definition" again. Why do I have to do it twice?

It's unbelievably annoying to always have to de-outline every single file every time you open it.

Who needs these regions actually? You have to be able to find what you need in file without regions, just use your dropdown lists with types and members.

if it's difficult to navigate, maybe you have too much in one file? What about restructuring stuff and splitting in in maybe ten files? Or is it a company style to develop the software in one single file? LOL

Just say No! to C# Regions