--- title: "Debug Visualizers in VS 2005: Almost there, one big feature missing" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2005/4/14/debug-visualizers-in-vs-2005-almost-there-one-big-feature-mi.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2005/4/14/debug-visualizers-in-vs-2005-almost-there-one-big-feature-mi.html" published: "2005-04-14T22:40:00" updated: "2005-04-14T22:40:00" tags: [".Net 2.0"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "One of the coolest new features in VS 2005 is Debug Visualizers, which allow you to \"see\" various data as it is being debugged in your IDE. For example - you can see a dataset presented as a real table in a grid (just…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # Debug Visualizers in VS 2005: Almost there, one big feature missing By Roy Osherove April 14, 2005 In [.Net 2.0](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-2-0) **Historical article** · Originally published April 14, 2005; technical details may be outdated. One of the coolest new features in VS 2005 is Debug Visualizers, which allow you to "see" various data as it is being debugged in your IDE. For example - you can see a dataset presented as a real table in a grid (just like [this thing](http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/DSWatch.asp) does today). The cool part is that you can create your own viewers for your custom types. The main problem \- you can't add viewers for built-in types - adding a viewer to a type requires putting a special attribute on it - so unless you have the source code for the CLR you won't be able to add any such thing to any class you'd like to debug more easily. That's a shame, which is why I added this suggestion to the MS feedback center. **Good for developers** **For example**, one of the things I wanted to do with the next version of [The Regulator](https://osherove.com/), is have it ship with built in Debug Visualizers for the **Regex** and **Regex.Match** objects for easier expression debugging when needed. That's **not** possible with what's going to ship (although it was possible in the earlier betas...) but it would be possible if this suggestion is accepted. **Good for 3rd party vendors** Microsoft should also consider the huge market this could create - a set of 3rd party vendors who create custom and powerful visualizers for CLR types of all sorts (including BizTalk visualizers for example..? with runtime editing? hmm..) **If you agree with this,** [**vote on it**](http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback/viewfeedback.aspx?feedbackId=f69bbb44-6ece-41d2-8f9e-8789016f1bc9)
Problem Statement:
Opened by Roy Osherove on 2005-04-13 at 14:08:19
   
You can only create debug visualizers for custom types that you create, by adding an attribute on them, but you can't create more robust or non existing debug visualizer types for CLR types such as Dataset or the Regex.Match object.
Proposed Solution:Allow creating debug visualizers on any type including CLR types in an easy manner.
This would allow 3rd parties to thrive in a new area and allow developers to create visualizers for intrinsic code they use a lot that does not have good visualizing ability.
**If you agree with this,** [**vote on it**](http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback/viewfeedback.aspx?feedbackId=f69bbb44-6ece-41d2-8f9e-8789016f1bc9) ## More in .Net 2.0 [All posts in .Net 2.0](https://osherove.com/blog/category/net-2-0) - Jun 26, 2005 ### [.NET CLR Data counters are wrong - Official](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/6/26/net-clr-data-counters-are-wrong-official.html) - Jun 19, 2005 ### [\[Audio Interview\] Brian Noyes: Deep .NET Q&A](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/6/19/audio-interview-brian-noyes-deep-net-qampa.html) - Apr 9, 2005 ### [Whitepaper: Introducing System Transactions, by Juval Lowy](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/4/9/whitepaper-introducing-system-transactions-by-juval-lowy.html) - Jan 18, 2005 ### [Data Binding with .Net 2.0 : upcoming coolness](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/1/18/data-binding-with-net-20-upcoming-coolness.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/