Useful Visual Studio Features

Breakpoints

Visual studio allows the use of breakpoints which pauses the program once the code has reached that line, once a breakpoint has paused the program it is possible to see what is stored in each variable. This is extremely useful for large programs when running into null exceptions, as it displays which variable is null. After using a breakpoint the tool bar at the top will allow the code to run one line at a time. To place a breakpoint click on the bar left of the numbers until a large red circle appears.

Colours

Visual studio includes the ability to colour certain code, this is useful for programs that have a lot of similar names. An example of the colouring is when declaring a variable: int i = 0 would have int coloured as blue, by default this is customisation from properties. While this may not seem useful when the extent of a program is reading and writing to consoles, it is extremely useful when using custom namespaces with their own functions and methods.