Build 2013: Top 3 Visual Studio 2013 Productivity Features

Last week Dev Pro covered key Visual Studio 2013 features for XAML, C++, JavaScript, and HTML development, along with some great new debugging capabilities that came out of Microsoft's keynote in our article, "Build 2013: Visual Studio 2013 Preview and .NET Framework 4.5.1 Available for Download." As most developers are already aware, Microsoft's Visual Studio team has been working hard to improve the user experience to boost developer productivity. With that said, we'd like to take a moment to dive into Visual Studio 2013's best productivity features that came out of last week's keynote at Build 2013.

Related: "Visual Studio 2013 Emphasizes Agile Development & DevOps Collaboration"

CodeLens. Visual Studio 2013's new CodeLens (Code Information Indicators) feature is shown above a method and lets developers quickly view all references of that method within their code. In addition, CodeLens is useful for determining how many tests are referencing a method and how many of those tests are passing. CodeLens also keeps track of who last checked in a change or modified a method.

Peek Definition. Going beyond Visual Studio's Go To Definition feature, Visual Studio 2013 introduces the Peek Definition feature that lets developers peek at the declaration inline -- without having to leave their place within the code.

Enhanced Scroll Bar. Microsoft has also enhanced the scrollbar in the editor that shows useful information at a glance. For example, you can see where edits in the file are currently pending or where the last save to the file made changes.

Want to learn more about the different productivity features that Visual Studio 2013 has to offer? Be sure to check out the Dev Pro article, "Top 5 Visual Studio 2013 Features for Agile Development & DevOps Collaboration."

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