Howdy! It's Dr. Dotnetsky, back again for some fun and cool ideas, with my first (and somewhat abbreviated) installment of Cool .NET Tips and Tricks!

Customize Toolbox default TAB

Are you tired of waiting for all the COM Components to load into the default COM Components TAB every time you want to customize the toolbox for a server control? You can easily change it so the .NET Framework Components TAB will be the default.

Just delete the Registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.0\ToolboxPages\ActiveXControls\DefaultTbx

and move it to the adjacent     \.NET Framework Controls key.

Once you've deleted it, double-clicking the following registry script (saved to a text file with a .REG extension) will do the trick:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.0\ToolboxPages\.NET Framework Components]
@="#1002"
"Page"="{74946839-37A0-11d2-A273-00C04F8EF4FF}"
"Package"="{7494682b-37a0-11d2-a273-00c04f8ef4ff}"
"DefaultTbx"=dword:00000014

WHICH OS ARE YOU?

If you are the deep philosophical type who loves to take tests that reveal your inner psche, why not take the "Which OS are you test!

Saving Code Snippets

Do you have a frequently - used snipped of code you'd like to be able to insert at various places in your ASP.NET project? Or perhaps you'd like to remove an area of code but save it in a convenient place so you can bring it back later? Just highlight the code in the IDE with your mouse, and DRAG it over to a blank space in the Toolbox! To bring it back and insert the code, just drag and drop it back into the editor from the Toolbox!

Well, that's all for now! If you like my rants here on Eggheadcafe.com, make a post to our forums in the Article Discussions area and tell us what you'd like to see! And remember, you VB Programmers, don't B Flat - be C Sharp! CSharp all the way, dudes! VB.NET's for the birds, get a life! They made me do VB.Net on a project and I almost jumped out the window! I had headaches for WEEKS! It took six months of therapy to get my head straight! What'd I say? I said C SHARP! VB.Net is for WEENIES! They wrote ASP.NET with a million lines of C-Sharp! What am I talking, Greek? Use C# - Csharp! --Hey! What are you doing with that hook? Wait .....