Visual Basic 1002005 [A Developers Notebook] [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

1.9. Insert Boilerplate CodeUsing Snippets

Some code is common and generic enough that
programmers everywhere write it again and again each day. Even though
developers have the help of online documentation, samples, and books
like the one you're reading, useful code never seems
to be at your fingertips when you need it. Visual Studio 2005
includes a new code snippet feature that allows you to insert
commonly used code and quickly adapt it to suit your purposes. Early
beta builds of Visual Studio 2005 included a tool for building your
own snippets. Although this feature isn't in the
latest releases, Microsoft has suggested that it might appear as a
separate add-on tool at a later time.

Note: Looking for the solution to an all-too-common nuisance?
Visual Studio code snippets might already have the answer.

1.9.1. How do I do that?

You can insert a code snippet anywhere in your code. Just move to the
appropriate location, right-click the mouse on the current line, and
select Insert Snippet. A pop-up menu will appear
with a list of snippet categories, such as Math, Connectivity and
Networking, and Working with XML. Once you select a category, a menu
will appear with a list of snippets. Once you select a snippet, the
code will be inserted.

For example, suppose you want to add the ability to send and receive
email messages to your application. Just create a new event handler
or a standalone method, and right-click inside it. Then, choose
Insert Snippet, and select Connectivity and Networking
Create an Email Message.
Figure 1-12 shows the code that's
inserted.

Figure 1-12. Customizing a code snippet

The shaded portions of code are literal values (like file paths and
control references) that you need to customize to adapt the code to
your needs. By pressing the Tab key, you can move from one shaded
region to the next. Additionally, if you hover over a shaded region,
a ToolTip will appear with a description of what content you need to
insert.

1.9.2. What about...

...getting more snippets? The basic set of code snippets included
with Visual Studio .NET is fairly modest. It includes some truly
useful snippets (e.g., "Find a Node in XML
Data") and some absurdly trivial ones (e.g.,
"Add a Comment to Your Code").
However, many useful topics, such as encryption,
aren't dealt with at all.

1.9.3. Where can I learn more?

Thanks to the pluggable nature of snippets, you may soon be able to
add more snippets to your collection from community web sites,
coworkers, third-party software developers, and even sample code from
a book like this.