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In any open file within Visual Studio, there is the ability to scroll all of the code out of sight". In other words, there is heaps of white space below the code lines that one can scroll to.

This to me is of no use, and when I pull my mouse wheel down with aggression, my code disappears off the screen.

Is there a way to turn this annoyance off? Also, can someone explain to me any logical reason as to why it's even there?

ps: I tagged this question as since I'm pretty sure it's been in every version of VS that I've ever used... though I'm currently using

This space is completely useless

Now it's even worse because I scrolled to the bottom (note the line #46)

EDIT

Jon Galloway pointed me to another thread stating that it was added by popular request. Still makes no sense why they wouldn't make it a switchable feature on/off

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It's also there by default in Sublime Text, however in the user config file you can turn that off. Don't know about Visual Studio. – dkuntz2 Apr 26 '11 at 2:58
I rolled back @Anna's edit since the second image illustrates the fact that you can scroll way down beyond the end of the code file. – Chase Florell Apr 26 '11 at 3:54
I don't think the second image adds that much more information to justify the space it takes up. – Anna Lear♦ Apr 26 '11 at 4:00
@Anna, the whole point of the question is the second image. The first shows the "baseline", the second shows the ridiculousness added by the virtual whitespace "feature" (as suggested in the Connect threads). – Chase Florell Apr 26 '11 at 4:02
FWIW I find this feature useful. When I'm writing a method, I like to see the whole thing on screen. Without this feature, adding lines within the last method of a class would inevitably result in the end of that method disappearing out of view. Plus, I prefer to write code in the top half of a window while I'm happy to read it anywhere. Virtual white-space accommodates my idiosyncrasies. – Bevan Feb 2 at 21:42

3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

According to Connect, that behavior is by popular request. I agree that it seems odd, although I occasionally use it to get a white background for screenshots.

One workaround might be to create a Visual Studio extension (VSIX) which modifies the scrolling behavior or suggest one on World of VS.

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up vote 4 down vote

Far as I know, it can't be turned off. There is an old suggestion logged for this on Microsoft Connect, but the comments on it are pretty confusing and the results are inconclusive.

There's a workaround if you're willing to use the keyboard - Ctrl+End will take you just to the actual last line of the file.

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The last "closed" comment on that thread is very confusing - They say it's expected behavior Thank you all for the feedback. We currently have an internal bug to really sort out our scrollbar story. Just to add a bit of a comment, the editor supports virtual whitespace, and many users expect the scrollbar to help them navigate down and to the right of the core 'text' in the editor window in order to access the virtual whitespace area. Why wouldn't there be a setting to enable/disable in order to make ALL users happy? – Chase Florell Apr 26 '11 at 3:44
@rockinthesixstring That's actually the first comment. They're in reverse chronological order. – Anna Lear♦ Apr 26 '11 at 3:50
good point. Thanks – Chase Florell Apr 26 '11 at 3:51
up vote 2 down vote

when I pull my mouse wheel down with aggression, my code disappears off the screen

"Doctor it hurts when I do this"
"Then don't do that"

Personally, I'm of the opinion that configuration options to tune every tiny detail of software is just added bloat for very little benefit. I'm sure many people would tell you that Visual Studio is bloated enough as it is. Also, remember that every tunable option means additional testing, additional documentation and an additional maintenance burden.

I think a Visual Studio extension to disable the feature would be a better option, because then it would be the maintainer of that extension who shoulders that burden.

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I agree, an extension/add in would be a perfectly good solution. Do you know of one? – Chase Florell Apr 26 '11 at 4:03
> Personally, I'm of the opinion that configuration options to tune every tiny detail of software is just added bloat for very little benefit.   Exactly. So why did they mess up the previous behavior and force it scroll past the end for everybody just because a few people want it to for some reason? – Synetech Aug 17 '12 at 15:30

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