Customize the scroll bar

When you're working with long code files, it can be hard to keep track of where everything is in the file. You can customize the scroll bar of the code editor to give you an overall picture of what's happening in your code.

Annotations

You can select whether the scroll bar shows annotations such as code changes, breakpoints, bookmarks, errors, and caret position.

1. Open the Scroll Bars options page by choosing Tools > Options > Text Editor > All Languages > Scroll Bars.

2. Select Show Annotations over vertical scroll bar, and then select the annotations you want to see. The available annotations are:

   • changes
   • marks
   • errors
   • caret position

   Tip

   The Show marks option includes breakpoints and bookmarks.

Try it out by opening a large code file and replacing some text that occurs in several places in the file. The scroll bar shows you the effect of the replacements, so you can back out your changes if you replaced something you shouldn't have.

Here's how the scroll bar looks after a search for a string. Notice that all instances of the string appear in the scroll bar.

Here's the scroll bar after replacing all the instances of the string. The red marks in the scroll bar show where the text replacement introduced errors.

Table of annotations

Curious as to which scroll bar annotations and their associated colors match which actions? See the following tables for details.

Code changes

Code changes are annotated in the far-left side of the vertical scroll bar.

Tracked files (in a Git repository)

Color	Default annotation	Status	Settings name
Green		Unsaved	Track additions in files under source control
Green		Saved	Track additions in files under source control
Red		Deleted	Track deletions in files under source control
Blue		Unsaved	Track modifications in files under source control
Blue		Saved	Track modifications in files under source control

Untracked files (not in a Git repository)

Color	Default annotation	Status	Settings name
Gold		Unsaved	Track changes in files before save
Green		Saved	Track changes in files after save
Blue		Reverted	Track reverted changes in files

Marks

Marks are annotated in the middle section of the vertical scroll bar.

Color	Default annotation	Settings name
Dark grey		Bookmark
Yellow		Find match
Dark red		Breakpoint
Light grey		Selection match
Blue		View definition

Error, Warning, Information, or Suggestion

Errors, warnings, information, and suggestions are annotated in the far-right side of the vertical scroll bar.

Color	Default annotation	Settings name
Red		Syntax error
Green		Warning
Blue		Information
Light grey		Suggestion ellipses (...)

Caret position

The caret position is also annotated in the far-right side of the vertical scroll bar.

Color	Default annotation	Settings name
Dark blue		Overview caret

Display modes

The scroll bar has two modes: bar mode and map mode.

Bar mode

Bar mode displays annotation indicators on the scroll bar. Clicking on the scroll bar scrolls the page up or down but doesn't jump to that location in the file.

Map mode

Map mode displays lines of code, in miniature, on the scroll bar. You can choose how wide the map column is by selecting a value in Source overview. To enable a larger preview of the code when you rest the pointer on the map, select the Show Preview Tooltip option. Collapsed regions are shaded differently and expand when you double-click them.

The following image shows the search example when map mode is on and the width is set to Medium:

The following image shows the Show Preview Tooltip option:

Related content

• Features of the code editor
• Learn about the Editor Sticky Scroll feature