Setting workspace options (Windows Store apps)

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You can use the Options dialog box to configure many aspects of your workspace.

Options menu

Making changes to the Options dialog box will impact certain features on the designer surface, for instance, turning on the Layout’s Use quadrant based layout setting will impact objects residing in columns or rows when resizing the parent grid.

Options dialog

The following table lists some of the settings available in the Options menu:

Workspace

Blend for Visual Studio 2012 comes with two themes for the workspace:

  • Dark

  • Light

    For more information, see the section “Change the theme of your workspace” below.

Project

You can set the following properties for your project:

  • Always reload modified files outside of Blend

  • Log assembly loading information to disk (XAML only)

  • Before turning on Interactive Mode when files have changed within the document closure (HTML only). You can set this to Prompt, Reload, or Don’t Reload.

Code editor

Code editors available for your project:

  • XAML editor

  • HTML editor

  • CSS editor

  • JavaScript editor

  • Other code editors

    For more information, see the section “Change the font and other Code editor options” below.

Artboard

Use quadrant based layout (XAML only) When quadrant algorithm is selected, alignments will be altered or set to align the currently selected controls to the nearest edges of the parent container. However, when quadrant algorithm is not selected, alignments will not be changed during a move or create operation.

For more information, see Arranging objects (XAML)

For more information, see the section “Change the background color f the artboad” below.

Documents

Show settings for This setting provide the ability to set a default behavior for a document view in your project.

Language

The setting provides a user the ability to change the default user interface language by simply selecting any supported language from a language drop-down list.

Animation

This setting is turned on by default and warns a user when a dependent non-accelerated animation is enabled.

Change the font and other code editor options

You can change the font face, font size, and other options for the text that appears in the Code view tab. You cannot change the font color because elements, attributes, and values are color-coded for easier development.

To change the font

  1. On the Tools menu, click Options.

  2. In the Options dialog box, select Code editor.

  3. Next to Show settings for, select an editor from the list:

    • XAML editor

    • HTML editor

    • CSS editor

    • JavaScript editor

    • Other code editors editor

  4. Under Font settings, select a Font and a Size.

  5. Click OK.

To change the tab size and word wrap options

  1. On the Tools menu, click Options.

  2. In the Options dialog box, select Code editor.

  3. Next to Show settings for, select XAML editor.

  4. Under Editor settings, select the tab size and word wrap options that you want.

  5. Click OK.

To restore the default XAML editor font and settings

  1. On the Tools menu, click Options.

  2. In the Options dialog box, select Code editor.

  3. Next to Show settings for, select an editor from the list:

    • XAML editor

    • HTML editor

    • CSS editor

    • JavaScript editor

    • Other code editors editor

  4. Click Reset to Default.

  5. Click OK.

Change the theme of your workspace

Blend comes with two themes for the workspace: dark and light. Changing your workspace theme does not affect the appearance of your project.

The themes of the Blend workspace: dark (left) and light (right)

JJ155083.9bea5711-d658-40e8-aa48-0d0abc2237bc(en-us,VS.110).png

To change your workspace theme

  1. On the Tools menu, click Options.

  2. In the Options dialog box, select Workspace (on the left).

  3. Next to Theme, select either Dark or Light. The theme changes immediately so that you can preview it.

  4. Click OK.

Change the background color of the artboard

You can change the background color of the artboard from the default dark gray to a color of your choice.

To change the artboard background color

  1. On the Tools menu, click Options.

  2. In the Options dialog box, select Artboard.

  3. Under Background, select Color, and then click the color square to open the color picker.

  4. Select a color from the color picker, and then click outside the color picker to close it.

  5. Click OK.

To restore the default artboard background color

  1. On the Tools menu, click Options.

  2. In the Options dialog box, select Artboard.

  3. Under Background, select Default background.

  4. Click OK.

See Also

Concepts

Blend workspace (Windows Store apps)

Making more room to work (Windows Store apps)