Debugging assistance for Visual Studio - Debugger Visualizers

Debugging any program is difficult in itself and to make it at least somehow easier, you can use the visualizers for Visual Studio ( Debugger Visualizers ).

The visualizer is a component of the Visual Studio debugger user interface. It creates a dialog box or other interface element in which a variable or object is displayed in a meaningful way suitable for this data type. For example, an HTML visualizer interprets an HTML string and displays the result as it would appear in a browser window, a bitmap visualizer recognizes the structure of a bitmap and displays it, etc. Some visualizers allow not only viewing but also editing data. .

The Visual Studio debugger contains four standard visualizers. These are text, HTML and XML visualizers that work with string objects, and a dataset visualizer that works with DataSet, DataTable, and DataView objects.

In addition to the standard visualizers supplied by Visual Studio, there are others as well - this will be discussed later.

Using Visual Studio Visualizers

Using one of the standard visualizers as an example, I will show an example of their use. In debug mode, opposite to objects for which there are visualizers, a magnifying glass icon appears. When you click on it, you can select the visualizer that suits you from the list.


Using an HTML text renderer.

Install Visualizer for Visual Studio

The visualizer is a set of .Net assemblies; if necessary, settings can be stored in the configuration file.

1. Place the visualizer files in the following path:
   ... \ My Documents \ Visual Studio 2005 {2008/10} \ Visualizers \
   or for Windows Vista:
   ... Program Files \ Microsoft Visual Studio 8 {9.0 / 10.0} \ Common7 \ Packages \ Debugger \ Visualizers \
   
2. Restart Visual Studio Debugging Session

Visual Studio Visualizers Overview

Mole For Visual Studio - With Editing - Visualize All Project Types

Project address: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/macros/MoleForVisualStudioEdit.aspx
Supported versions of Visual Studio: 2005/2008
“Mole For Visual Studio” is a real monster for displaying data in a convenient form with the ability to edit object properties for The following project types: ASP.NET, WPF, WCF, WF, and WinForm.

To work with the Mole visualizer in debug mode, for example for ASP.NET, select the appropriate item:

This is the main window for viewing page information:

For ASP.NET and other supported projects, you can see here:

• Object hierarchy: ASPX pages, WPF, WinForms.
• Search property names and bookmark frequently used names.
• Ability to save and load property values ​​using xml files.

For working with WPF, XAML is additionally displayed as XML or viewing rendered XAML.

To view and edit some types of properties, such as colors, fonts, DateTime, special windows are made:

Xml Visualizer v.2

After the monster “Mole For Visual Studio”, this and other visualizers look faded, but they do an excellent job with highly specialized tasks.

Project address: http://www.codeplex.com/XmlVisualizer
Supported versions of Visual Studio: 2005/2008.
If you often have to deal with XML, then “Xml Visualizer” is a great helper. It will easily display your XML, enable XSLT transformations, or validate using a schema (XSD). Convenient search by text or using XPath is made for XML document.
The same visualizer is supplied as a standalone application that can work directly with XML files or text outside of Visual Studio.

Visualizer selection in debugging.


XML view and edit mode.


XSLT conversion.

WCF Debugger Visualizers Tool

Project address: http://wcfvisualizer.codeplex.com/
Supported versions of Visual Studio: 2008/2010.
A convenient visualizer for debugging services using WCF. The project website offers a default version for VS2010 written using .NET 4.0 Beta 1. The version for VS2008 can be found here .

Conclusion

Installation by simple copying files. Visual representation of application data in debugging, allowing you to get the big picture without digging heavily into the code. I will be glad if these small additions save your time.

Visualizers from the article

• Mole For Visual Studio - With Editing - Visualize All Project Types .
• Xml Visualizer v.2 .
• WCF Debugger Visualizers Tool .

Additional Information

• Information on MSDN: Visualizers , A Practical Guide. Writing a visualizer .
• Visualizers from " C # Samples for Visual Studio 2008 ". The set contains “ExpressionTreeVisualizer” for visualizing the expression tree and “QueryVisualizer” for viewing the SQL used for the LINQ expression. A small review can be found here .
• Visualizer the LINQ to the SQL the Debug Visualizer .
• Visualizer Righthand the Dataset Debugger Visualizer .

Good luck debugging!