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 hate regions (my team loves them) and was surprised to find that nobody has written an extension to make them better. I finally wrote one myself called I Hate #Regions:

Make #regions suck less (for free):

http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/0ca60d35-1e02-43b7-bf59-ac7deb9afbca

• Auto Expand regions when a file is opened
• Optionally prevent regions from being collapsed (but still be able to collapse other code)
• Give the #region / #end region lines a smaller, lighter background so they are less noticeable (also an option)
• Works in C# and VB

Answer 2

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 The Problem With Code Folding

Answer 3

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

Answer 4

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

Answer 5

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 6

For VS 2008 users, you can stop outlining and restart it programatically (via a macro). I found this code at http://weblogs.asp.net/rweigelt/archive/2003/07/06/9741.aspx

Imports EnvDTE

' Expands all regions in the current document    
Sub ExpandAllRegions()        
    DTE.ExecuteCommand("Edit.StopOutlining")        
    DTE.ExecuteCommand("Edit.StartAutomaticOutlining")    
End Sub

The above works for C# IDE; for some reason, VB's IDE doesn't remove outlining with regions when explicitly told to. Hope this helps!

-- appended edit:

Here's one that does work for Visual Basic .NET in Visual Studio 2008. It's a bit of brute force, but the idea is to comment all of the #region markers, expanding the outline. The next step uncomments them, returning them to their original state (not strictly true... could have rogue uses of #region in other parts of the code). This code doesn't return the Find & Replace dialog back to it's original state, either. With those caveats, this is the macro module that will perform this chore:

Imports System
Imports EnvDTE
Imports EnvDTE80
Imports EnvDTE90
Imports System.Diagnostics

Public Module MacroMod01
    Sub ExpandAllRegions()
    ' comment out all #region occurances
        DTE.ExecuteCommand("Edit.Replace")
        DTE.Find.Action = vsFindAction.vsFindActionReplaceAll
        DTE.Find.FindWhat = "#region"
        DTE.Find.ReplaceWith = "'#region"
        DTE.Find.Target = vsFindTarget.vsFindTargetCurrentDocument
        DTE.Find.MatchCase = False
        DTE.Find.MatchWholeWord = False
        DTE.Find.MatchInHiddenText = True
        DTE.Find.PatternSyntax = vsFindPatternSyntax.vsFindPatternSyntaxLiteral
        DTE.Find.ResultsLocation = vsFindResultsLocation.vsFindResultsNone
        DTE.Find.Action = vsFindAction.vsFindActionReplaceAll
        DTE.Find.Execute()

    ' uncomment all #region occurances
        DTE.ExecuteCommand("Edit.Replace")
        DTE.Find.Action = vsFindAction.vsFindActionReplaceAll
        DTE.Find.FindWhat = "'#region"
        DTE.Find.ReplaceWith = "#region"
        DTE.Find.Target = vsFindTarget.vsFindTargetCurrentDocument
        DTE.Find.MatchCase = False
        DTE.Find.MatchWholeWord = False
        DTE.Find.MatchInHiddenText = True
        DTE.Find.PatternSyntax = vsFindPatternSyntax.vsFindPatternSyntaxLiteral
        DTE.Find.ResultsLocation = vsFindResultsLocation.vsFindResultsNone
        DTE.Find.Action = vsFindAction.vsFindActionReplaceAll
        DTE.Find.Execute()

    'close the find 'n replace dialog
        DTE.Windows.Item("{CF2DDC32-8CAD-11D2-9302-005345000000}").Close()  

    End Sub

End Module

There may be a few other methods to accomplish this for VB in VS2008. I'll post as I find them.

Answer 7

I think it is funny anyone that hates Regions. I love Regions so much I wrote a program called Regionizer, which is an open source project located at http://regionizer.codeplex.com

I have had bosses and some team members who hate them, but my tool organizes all code alphabetically, so methods are alphabetically sorted in the Methods Region, Properties are sorted in the Properties Region, and Events are sorted in the Events region.

Try to find code without this tool (or Regions) is what I call Spaghetti Code).

I have been searching for an easy way to collapse and expand all regions and have been told by MS that the regions are part of the .suo file (same name as the project or solution) and there is not an easy way to get a handle on the regions object them selves.

I have searched all through the DTE and I haven't found a way to collapse all or Expand all regions, I am going to try the Macro code and see if it works.

Will post an update shortly.