i think i've been babied way too much with c# and i miss having a lot of pretty colors available in the IDE.
are there any good tools/addons/etc out there that could set up different colors between identifiers, classes/structs, stack variables, heap variables, etc.?
thanks.
What editor/IDE are you currently using for C++ programming? Perhaps it supports syntax highlighting with some option.
Look up a C++ Reference and learn How To Ask Questions The Smart WayOriginally Posted by Bjarne Stroustrup (2000-10-14)
i'm using VS.NET 2003.
i find it inadequate because identifiers, functions, objects are all the same color. i got used to it, but i'd be able to increase my productivity ten-fold if i could have more colors.
Tools -> Options -> Fonts & Colors. There's quite a few categories.
You realize there's version 2008 now? If you can, you should definitely upgrade, because 2003 is old.
(Express edition is free, as well.)
All identifiers you'd use would be stack variables, not heap variables.
Yeah I would just go for MSVC++ 2008 Express if I were you. Its design is very similar to what you are used to in C#. As tabstop pointed out you may want to look at some of the color options. I personally always tweak things a bit from the defaults (mostly so I can make all my IDE's have an identical formatting across the board). There are a few things that get color formatted in C# that aren't going to be altered in C++. But you will manage.
unfortunately, 2008 isn't an option because at work we're still using 2003. the best by far i've found so far is slickedit, which is just phenomenal in terms of what you can do with it for editing. it's a real showstopper that it doesn't support the microsoft debugger though...
i have 2008 at home, and even that i find to be unsatisfactory. for example, std::vector<int> foo, both vector and foo will be the same color no matter what.
found some info...
i can create a usertype.dat file and put it in the devenv.exe location. any string that matches things in the file gets colored to the 'user types'.
too bad it's not dynamic. ah well...better than nothing.
I've also found that Visual Assist X tend to help with colors, among other things. Not free, though, but I don't think it's illegal to reset the trial period.
thanks for the info!
i also found a free addin on codeproject called king's tools. it's pretty neat...it iterates through every project in the solution and writes to a usertype.dat, and then forces a refresh of the user types.
unfortunately, for whatever reason it VS can't see all of my types. i was thinking of writing a source code parser to extract everything class/struct definition manually. i'm also guessing i'm reinventing the wheel but i can't seem to find any projects on google, and i don't think i wanna go as far as looking in the GCC code :S. does anyone happen to know of a project that simply extracts classes/structs from source files?
