After a fresh install of Visual Studio, I often re-configure some options and setup keyboard bindings. This tends to be a bit of a pain as each and every time I have to remember what setting is in what U.I. configuration pane and how do I find/configure that again? I also will often forget about certain settings until the point I need them and it really breaks my coding rhythm down to go hunt for and reconfigure these options.

I recently found a simple solution to get my VS just the way I want it.

P.S. Some of you may want to tell me all about the VS import/export settings, and you may be right, but I just haven’t spent the time to use/understand/easily find a way to integrate it into my ‘flow’.

So I present to you “MY happy path” to Visual Studio Environment configuration.

1. Install the NuGet Package Manager Extension

You’re going to probably install this extension anyway, so go-ahead and install it now if you don’t already have it… We need this so you can get access to the NuGet Package Manager Console

2. Execute Function Set-VisualStudioEnvironmentConfiguration

Wait! What is “Set-VisualStudioEnvironmentConfiguration”?

This is a little function that I have in My PowerShell $Profile which gets setup on all development environment.

So what’s in this PowerShell script?

As of writing this, I only have two specific setup commands, but thought I’d share as an example of what you can do:

1. Set a keyboard binding to a specific command.

   # Map Ctrl+W to close a tab
   $DTE.Commands.Item("File.Close").Bindings = "Global::Ctrl+W";

   
   



2. ShowLineNumbers for all language files.
   

   # Turn on line numbers for ALL language types
   ($DTE.Properties("TextEditor", "AllLanguages") | where {$_.Name -eq "ShowLineNumbers" } ).Value = $true

   
   



3. Turn on whitespace?
   

   # This doesn't work and I wish it did... 
   $DTE.ExecuteCommand("Edit.ViewWhiteSpace")
   # Fails with: "Command "Edit.ViewWhiteSpace" is not available."
   # Maybe one of you can help me out?

   
   
   

   
   

   How can I find and setup the settings I like?

   
   

   
   I’m no VS expert and only know as much about the $DTE object as what I’ve written about here, but I’ll give you some tips and you can go from there…

• Google/Bing are your friends. Type “DTE Visual Studio {TheThingYouWantToAccomplish}”



• After your search, most examples you find will be VB macros and as it turns out VB (in this case) translates nicely to PowerShell (EX: 
    VB Macro:  DTE.Commands.Item("File.Close").Bindings = "Global::Ctrl+W"
  
  PowerShell: $DTE.Commands.Item("File.Close").Bindings = "Global::Ctrl+W"
  
  
  See the difference? (yep just the ‘$’ at the beginning of the PowerShell one) Nifty eh?



• Don’t be afraid to use PowerShell to search/filter things in the $DTE. Try this:
  
  PM>  $DTE.Commands | where { $_.Name –match ‘Close’ } | select { $_.Name }
  
  
  

Happy VS Environment setting-uppers!