Moving from Visual Studio to Sublime Text

Question

I'm working with Sublime Text for a while now and it works perfectly! But at my new work they're using Visual Studio, with some plugins and shortcut changes I'm now be able to work a little bit faster but I prefer Sublime Text.

Why I'm stuck to Visual Studio at my work is because of 3 things:

1. TFS: Team Foundation Server

I've found the Sublime TFS plugin, I haven't tested it yet but I think it works the same as the Sublime SVN plugin which I don't like (no status on checkout, just waiting until it's done). For SVN I'm using TortoiseSVN which works nicely. Is there something like TortoiseSVN for TFS?

2. Solutions

If I browse to the solution/product folder on my computer, add a new file and go back to Visual Studio I've to include that file into the solution/project. I'm used to exclude files which I don't like to use in my project instead of include. Is it possible to change this?

3. Build system

After every change I've to build. Instead of just save (F5) and go to my browser (ALT-TAB) which refreshes automatically after every change, I have to save (F5), build (SHIFT-F6), go to my browser (ALT-TAB) and refresh (F5) with Visual Studio. I'm pretty handy with it now, but I think this can be done easier. So is it possible to build automatically after saving?

What I did until now is searching on Google. I've found some interesting things but nothing which covers these 3 things. For example; here a simple tutorial for the build system. I hope someone can help me out with this so I can say good bye to Visual Studio and return to Sublime Text with love.

Answer 1

I have setup a shortcut key in Visual Studio to open my files in Sublime Text Editor. Below is a step by step guide to doing this.

Step 1:

Open Visual Studio, Go to "Tools" menu and Select "External Tools..."

Step 2:

Click on "Add". Set up a Title say "Open in Sublime" , browse to "sublime_text.exe" to the set the Command textbox. For the arguments fill them with $(ItemPath):$(CurLine):$(CurCol) - this will tell Sublime to open the Visual Studio's current file and go to the same location within that file. Set the Initial Directory to $(ItemDir).

Step 3:

Now if you go Menu > Tools you will find our newly added "Open In Sublime" option. Now let's take this one step forward and setup a shortcut key for this.

Step 4:

Go to Menu > Tools > Options, Under Environment select "Keyboard". In the "Show command containing:" field search for "externalcommand6" and press in your shortcut key combination you want to assing and click the "Assign" button. Avoid combinations that are already in use.

That's it you're done

Sublime text editing is now just a keystroke away.

Answer 2

You can use them both. Visual studio is an ide and manages a lot more then just editing the text files.

If you want to use your text editor of choice you just need to get familure with the command line tools that VS hides from you.

For TFS tasks you need to use TF

When you need to build just invoke MSbuild which is what Visual Studio more or less does anyway. You can also edit the project files by hand as there just msbuild files.