Visual Studio 2015 Feature Custom Windows Layout

I have seen lot of developers who are working with Visual Studio; they actually face issue with Layouts [Visual Studio Layout]. Now a days, developers use multiple system, it can be Desktop, Laptop or Tablets, etc for multiple purpose. So, depending on the devices the layout always changes. So when we move from one device to other device with Visual Studio, we face the layout issue.

It is because, in small device, screen size is very small and the visual studio components like ToolBox, Solution Explorer and Server Explorer etc. take more space generally. So, we need to manage every time when we move to one device to another.

feature

But you should not worry about this with Visual Studio 2015. Actually Visual Studio 2015 has introduced a great feature “Custom Windows Layout”. So, now you can customize your layout window as per your working device and reuse it any time. It allows us to create custom layout as per your requirement and use it.

Let’s take an example. Suppose a developer is working with two systems. One is his laptop and other one is his secondary monitor [Desktop]. Sometimes he has required to work on laptop and sometime on desktop.

See the following image; here developer is using Desktop where he want to see the Solution Explorer as well as Server Explorer.

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But when he moves with his laptop, the screen size is small as compared to desktop. So, he only want to focus on code rather than Server Explorer and Solution Explorer. So, to manage this he need to be unpinning both windows. Now he can only see the code part.

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Issue

If you are going to use Visual Studio with some different screen size of devices then you again need to change the layout.

Solution

But if you are using Visual Studio 2015, there is no need to change manual layout every time. You just create the custom layout and reuse according to your devices.

You can manage your custom layout from Window Menu. You can see that yet there are no Saved Layouts. Here's the image,
window

Laptop Layout

If you are going to create a new one, click on Window Menu and choose Save Window Layout. It will open a dialog box where you can specify the relevant name for your layout and click OK. I am not using any component like Server Explorer, Solution Explorer, Toolbox, etc for Laptop Layout.

layout

It will create a layout for laptop screen.

Desktop Layout

Now make changes in Visual Studio IDE with component and open Server Explorer and Solution Explorer and create a layout for desktop screen.

Now it is time to create custom layout for Desktop screen.

save

When you click OK, It will add in layout list. You can see and manage your custom layouts.

Now you can move from one layout to other one without much effort.

When you choose any one layout to change the IDE screen components, then it will ask for the confirmation to change,

apply

You can also manage your layout, like if you want to rename the layout name or delete any custom layout, you can manage it easily,

manage

If you think, you don’t want to use any custom layout then you can simply reset it. For resetting the layout, from the Windows menu choose Reset Window Layout. It will ask to confirm it.

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When you go with Yes then it auto reset your layout with default layout.

So, I think this is a great feature introduced with Visual Studio 2015 where you can manage your different types of layout easily and also switch to anyone without any manual effort. I believe you will check it out yourself and see and ask to yourself, is this really useful?

Thanks for reading this article, hope you enjoyed it.