VS.NET defaults to private class

Question

Why does Visual Studio declare new classes as private in C#? I almost always switch them over to public, am I the crazy one?

Answer 1

I am not sure WHY it does that, but here's what you do in order to get Visual Studio to create the class as Public by default:

Go over to “Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates\CSharp\Code\1033″, you will find a file called Class.zip, inside the .zip file open the file called Class.cs, the content of the file looks like this:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
$if$ ($targetframeworkversion$ == 3.5)using System.Linq;
$endif$using System.Text;   

namespace $rootnamespace$
{
    class $safeitemrootname$
    {
    }
}

All you need to do is add “Public” before the class name. The outcome should look like this:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
$if$ ($targetframeworkversion$ == 3.5)using System.Linq;
$endif$using System.Text;   

namespace $rootnamespace$
{
    public class $safeitemrootname$
    {
    }
}

One last thing you need to do is flush all the Templates Visual Studio is using, and make him reload them. The command for that is ( it takes a while so hold on):

devenv /installvstemplates

And that’s it, no more private classes by default. Of course you can also add internal or whatever you want.

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