Visual Studio 2013 IDE

The Visual Studio 2013 integrated development environment (IDE) offers new editor features such as Peek Definition, which displays an inline view of method definition code instead of requiring a developer to open a full new window. Shown here, Peek Definition has been selected on the ConfigureAuth method, and a view of ConfigureAuth’s definition code in the StartupAuth.cs file is displayed in the gray box in the editor window. Code in the definition view can be edited, and Peek Definition can be used on methods within the view to navigate deeper.

CodeLens, another new editor feature, shows meta-information about code (such as reference counts, unit test information, and change history) inline in the editor before the code definition. Shown here, CodeLens indicates the Startup class is referenced elsewhere in the code twice (the gray text indicating “2 references”), and the Configuration method has no references (the gray text indicating “0 references”). Clicking on the CodeLens statistics shows more detail. Shown here, when the references count above the Startup class is clicked, a pop-up shows the file names and lines of code where the class is referenced.