Sometimes it's the little things that can really make your day. That's the way I feel about Visual Studio's Code Snippets. Ever since they were introduced in Visual Studio 2005, I've wondered how I ever wrote code without them.

Note: More so then most things in Visual Studio, code snippets behave slightly differently between languages. Since most of our readers code in VB, I'll be using it for the code examples and screen captures throughout the article. If you prefer C#, not to worry. The same concepts apply, but you may run across a few things which function slightly differently then illustrated.

What Are Code Snippets?

Code snippets are exactly what they sound like... little pieces of code that you can use to help you build your pages faster. They're better then cutting-and-pasting from a library of code because they include dynamic placeholders for the sections of code that you'll need to edit. Since the functionality is built right into the Visual Studio IDE, they're also much faster then the cut-and-paste approach (especially once you learn the shortcuts).

Inserting a Code Snippet

Let's examine the process of inserting a basic code snippet. To begin the process, simply right-click where you want the code to appear in the code window. This will bring up the context menu. From the menu, select "Insert Snippet..."

This will bring up the Insert Snippet box. From here you can drill down into the different snippet categories and select the snippet you want to insert.

In this case, I'm going to chose the simple "If... Else... End If Statement" snippet. Notice that each snippet will also you its "Shortcut". A shortcut lets you invoke a snippet without needing to go through the whole process I'm outlining here. We'll discuss shortcuts more in the next section. I just wanted to show you one way you can find a specific snippet's shortcut.

Once you select a snippet, Visual Studio will insert the corresponding block of code into the code window. The block of code will usually contain at least one section that you'll normally need to edit. These sections are highlighted in green and if you hover over them with the cursor, you'll get a tooltip telling you what type of expression should go there.

While the code for the snippet I picked was relatively short and simple, there's no reason it has to be short. The code for some of the snippets is quite long. For example, the snippet for drawing a pie chart in a Windows Form application contains two subroutines. I mention this so that you realize you're free to do as much or as little as you'd like in a snippet.

Shortcuts

While what I just showed you is definitely cool, if you had to go through the whole snippet folder process every time, it'd get old pretty fast. Not to mention it would slow you down to the point where the snippets probably wouldn't save you very much time at all. Luckily Visual Studio contains a number of shortcuts that make using snippets much quicker. The first one is actually called a "Shortcut", and most snippets have one.

A "Shortcut" is a short keyword that you can type in to the code window in order to insert the corresponding snippet. If you didn't notice, the "Shortcut" for the "If... Else... End If Statement" snippet I used earlier is "IfElse". To use the "Shortcut", all you need to do is type "IfElse" and then press the <Tab> key. This screen was captured right before I pressed <Tab>.

The same screen a second later after I pressed <Tab>.

What if you're not sure of a "Shortcut"? Well that's no problem either. Simply type the starting portion of the shortcut (at least one letter), follow it with a question mark ("?") and then the <Tab> key. It sounds confusing, but after you've done it a few times it becomes second nature. That'll bring up a list of all the registered shortcuts. From there you can scroll to the one you want and select it from the list.

The other time saver that you may find useful (especially until you learn some shortcuts) is the <Ctrl-K>, <Ctrl-X> key combination. It'll bring up the "Insert Snippet" browser without you needing to right-click to bring up the context menu or go to the "Edit -> IntelliSense -> Insert Snippet..." menu.

The Code Snippets Manager

The next step in dealing with snippets is the "Code Snippets Manager". You can get there by going to "Tools -> Code Snippets Manager..." or by using the <Ctrl-K>, <Ctrl-B> key combination.

The "Code Snippets Manager" lets you browse the available snippets and read their descriptions. It'll also tell you where a particular snippet's file is located and allows you to tell Visual Studio which folders it should watch for snippet files.

We'll talk more about "Code Snippets Manager" in the next installment. For now I just wanted to let you know it's there and that you can use it to browse through the installed snippets.

What Does a .snippet File Look Like?

Before we start installing more snippets or creating our own, it's a good idea to have a basic understanding of the .snippet file format.

If you played around with the Code Snippets Manager that we discussed at the end of the last article, you may have noticed that when you select a snippet, it'll show you the filename which contains the snippet's declaration.

Since I used the "If...Else...End If" snippet for illustration last time, let's take a look at the actual .snippet file that makes it work. I've been using Visual Web Developer 2008 Express for this article and it stores the file in question at: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\VBExpress\Snippets\1033\common code patterns\conditionals and loops\IfElseEndIfStatement.snippet The file is just a regular XML-based text file so you can open it using Notepad, Visual Studio, or any other text editor. The contents of the file are below.

IfElseEndIfStatement.snippet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<CodeSnippets xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/2005/CodeSnippet">
  <CodeSnippet Format="1.0.0">
    <Header>
      <Title>If...Else...End If Statement </Title>
      <Author>Microsoft Corporation</Author>
      <Description>Inserts an If...Else...End If statement.</Description>
      <Keywords>
      </Keywords>
      <Shortcut>IfElse</Shortcut>
    </Header>
    <Snippet>
      <Declarations>
        <Literal>
          <ID>Condition</ID>
          <Type>Boolean</Type>
          <ToolTip>Replace with an expression that evaluates to either True or False.</ToolTip>
          <Default>True</Default>
        </Literal>
      </Declarations>
      <Code Language="VB" Kind="method body"><![CDATA[If $Condition$ Then

Else

End If]]></Code>
    </Snippet>
  </CodeSnippet>
</CodeSnippets>

The file is split into two main sections: "Header" and "Snippet". The "Header" section provides the basic information about the snippet. This is where you put the snippet's title, description, shortcut key, and other stuff like that. The "Snippet" section contains the actual code for the snippet as well as defining "Declarations" which are the editable areas which get highlighted in green when the user inserts a snippet.

Downloading and Installing Additional Code Snippets

I was actually relatively surprised that I didn't find more sources for snippets online. Everyone says they have code snippets, but very few actually have code available in Visual Studio's snippet format. One site that actually does is GotCodeSnippets.NET.

The thing that's a little weird about downloading snippets is that they are usually packaged in the Visual Studio Community Content Installer (VSI) format. Simply save the .vsi file somewhere you'll be able to find it. Once you've downloaded it, simply double-click the file and you'll be greeted with a screen that looks something like this:

After you tell it where to install the snippet (I recommend you install all your downloaded and custom snippets in the "My Code Snippets" folder), it will copy the files to the appropriate places and display a status screen:

That's all there is to it. The downloaded snippet(s) are now installed and can be used just like any of the ones that shipped with your version of Visual Studio.

Creating Your Own Snippets

Sure Visual Studio includes lots of great snippets, and sure you can download lots more from the Web, but the real power of snippets is unleashed when you start creating your own. After all, only you know how you like to work and what you spend most of your time doing.

Manually

The format of .snippet files is simple enough that you can easily create your own snippets quite quickly by hand. Not wanting to type everything from scratch, I simply opened up an existing snippet and replaced the values with ones appropriate for what I wanted my snippet to do.

For the sake of illustration, I've chosen to share one of the snippets that I find myself using quite a bit. It's short and I intentionally gave it a shortcut name that is the same as the IsPostBack property of the page object. I did it not only to show that you can, but also because it makes the shortcut almost impossible to forget.

This snippet simply creates a conditional that checks to be sure the page is NOT being posted back. I quite often write this conditional so that code to initialize values and set the default state of objects on the page only runs when the page is first called. It's pretty simple so I'll just show you the complete .snippet file.

IsNotPostBackCheck.snippet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<CodeSnippets xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/2005/CodeSnippet">
  <CodeSnippet Format="1.0.0">
    <Header>
      <Title>IsNotPostBack Check</Title>
      <Author>15Seconds.com</Author>
      <Description>Creates a conditional to check that a page is not being posted back.  Useful for initialization.</Description>
      <HelpUrl>http://www.15seconds.com/issue/080710.htm</HelpUrl>
      <Keywords />
      <Shortcut>IsPostBack</Shortcut>
    </Header>
    <Snippet>
      <Declarations>
        <Literal>
          <ID>InitCode</ID>
          <Type>String</Type>
          <ToolTip>Replace with code to run if page is running for the first time.</ToolTip>
          <Default>' Initialization Code Goes Here</Default>
        </Literal>
      </Declarations>
      <Code Language="VB" Kind="method body"><![CDATA[If Not IsPostBack Then
    $InitCode$
End If]]></Code>
    </Snippet>
  </CodeSnippet>
</CodeSnippets>

Once you've completed your changes to your new .snippet file all you need to do is place it into the "My Code Snippets" folder located under the Visual Studio folder in "My Documents". The full path should be something like: C:\Documents and Settings\_Your_User_Name_\My Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Code Snippets\Visual Basic\My Code Snippets. Once the file is there, if everything is working correctly Visual Studio should automatically find it and make it available for you to use.

Here are a couple screen caps of the snippet in use.

Code Snippet Editor

If you're more of a GUI type of person, there are also some tools floating around to help you create snippets without having to write the XML yourself. The Code Snippet Editor for Visual Basic 2008 is one such tool. You can find out more about it and download a copy from here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vbasic/bb973770.aspx

The interface is quite straight-forward and you shouldn't have any problems finding your way around the tool. So you can get an idea what it looks like, here's a screen shot of the tool with the "IsNotPostBack Check" sample snippet created loaded for editing.

If you have any trouble with the way the tool manages snippets, don't forget you can always use the import functionality of Visual Studio's Code Snippets Manager or simply copy your .snippet file to the "My Code Snippets" folder located in your "My Documents" folder just like we did with the one we created by hand.

Conclusion

The first part of this article introduced Visual Studio code snippets and showed how they can save you lots of time and typing by reducing the need for you to manually type repetitive code. It also showed you how to use shortcuts to make using snippets even faster. This part showed how you can take the time savings to a whole new level by downloading and creating your own snippets.

Snippets are one of the greatest time savers to come along in a long while. If you haven't already been using them I hope this article has helped open your eyes. If you have, hopefully you still learned something new and useful about these powerful little coders.