Managing and Sharing ReSharper Settings

ReSharper saves your preferences using the mechanism of layered settings, which provides the following benefits:

• You can have different settings in different solutions.

• You can keep different subsets of the preferences in different places and combine them when you work on a specific solution. For example, you can keep your personal preferences for symbol icons and your team preferences for code formatting in different setting files and combine these preferences automatically.

• You can synchronize preferences within your team by keeping a specific subset of settings under a VCS. ReSharper provides a default option of keeping team preferences in a separate file, which is saved in the solution folder and can be easily added to your VCS. If other team members use ReSharper, settings from this file will be applied automatically as soon as they pull the changes from the VCS, no Visual Studio restart or solution reload is needed.

• As any subset of settings can be saved in a file and updated dynamically, you can share your ReSharper preferences in many other ways. For example, you can keep your personal preferences in Dropbox and use them on different machines.

• Preferences from different setting files are applied as layers so that if the same setting has different values in different setting files the value from the 'upper' layer is used. This allows you to override settings defined in a specific setting file instead of changing them in this file.
  Consider the following example:
  Suppose you prefer to use BSD style brackets, and keep this formatting preference in your personal settings. But then you start working on a specific solution where GNU style brackets are used by a convention - ReSharper allows you to change the corresponding formatting preference and save it in a solution-specific setting layer so that it overrides your personal preference and applied as long as you work on this solution. When you open another solution, you personal preference is applied again.

In this topic:

• Default settings and setting layers
  • 'This computer' layer
  • 'Solution team-shared' layer
  • 'Solution personal' layer
• Saving and overriding settings
  • Save (Smart Save)
  • Save To (Save to Specific Layer)
• Managing setting layers
  • Adding a custom setting layer
  • Editing a specific setting layer
  • Exporting settings from a specific setting layer
  • Importing settings from a setting layer file
  • Copying settings from one layer to another

Default settings and setting layers

Out of the box, ReSharper comes with the default set of preferences, which are based on conventions and best practices in the .NET world. These default settings are hard-coded in the product and you can always reset to the defaults if necessary. If you change any setting, your change is saved in a settings layer and ReSharper applies it overriding the corresponding default setting. Initially, ReSharper creates three layers where you can save your preferences: This computer, Solution team-shared, and Solution personal.

'This computer' layer

This settings layer is designated for your personal global settings and applies for all solutions on your local machine.
The corresponding settings file is saved in the %AppData%\JetBrains\\Shared\\vAny\\GlobalSettingsStorage.DotSettings folder.

'Solution team-shared' layer

This layer is designated for common settings that enforce your team preferences for the current solution , e.g. naming style, formatting rules, etc . Settings in this layer override settings in This computer layer.
The corresponding settings file <SolutionName>.sln.DotSettings is saved in the solution folder.
As soon as this file is added to your VCS and the team members get it, ReSharper applies these settings automatically without reloading the solution.

'Solution personal' layer

This layer allows you to override team-shared settings without changing them. You may find this helpful if you need to have some settings applied only in this solution and independently of your team.
The corresponding settings file <SolutionName>.sln.DotSettings.user is saved in the solution folder. You should not add it to your VCS.

Consider the illustration below. You can see that initially all setting layers are empty and therefore ReSharper can 'see through them' and apply the default settings:

In fact, initially the setting layer files do not exist, they are first created whey you modify and save some setting. But if the setting file exists, it is still 'transparent' for all settings that are not defined in it.

Saving and overriding settings

Each time you change some setting in the Options dialog, a message with the number of unsaved setting appear in the bottom of the dialog.

Save (Smart Save)

This button applies the 'smart save' logic.
Use it to apply your modifications and keep team-shared and/or custom layers (if any) intact. In other words, use this button if you just want to save your changes without bothering about the setting layers.
This button will save your changes to 'This computer' setting layer, then if there are other values for the modified settings in the 'Solution team-shared' and/or custom layers, the changes will be also saved to the 'Solution personal' layer to override values in other layers.

Consider the example in the illustration below. Suppose you changed three settings and had 'green' instead of ‘blue’ values; these changes were saved in 'This computer' layer. Then, your team has decided to have settings A and C ‘yellow’ within your team-shared solution, so these values were saved by a team-lead in the 'Solution team-shared' layer, ReSharper applied them as soon as you pulled changes from your VCS. Finally, you realized that you felt more comfortable with the ‘green’ value for setting A, and you changed and saved it again, this time it was also saved in the 'Solution personal' layer, so as to have the desired value applied without changing the team-shared layer:

Save To (Save to Specific Layer)

You will need this button to save modified settings to the 'Solution team-shared' layer or to a custom layer. You can also save the modifications to any other layer if you need it for some purpose.

The only catch with Save To is that after saving a setting to a particular layer, it may NOT be applied if the same setting is defined with another value in other layers above in the stack of layers. The illustration below shows how we tried to change setting C to ‘red' by using Save To and why the resulting setting failed to be changed.

Managing setting layers

By default, you can share ReSharper settings per solution using the 'Solution team shared' layer. If you want to share settings in other ways, you would need to learn how to create new setting layers, import and export them. For these purposes, ReSharper provides the Settings Layers Dialog available in the Visual Studio menu (ReSharper | Manage Options) and in the Options dialog (by clicking the Manage button).

Custom setting layers are added under existing default layers. E.g., if you want the settings from the custom layer to be applied for all solutions, add it under 'This computer' layer; otherwise add it under one of the solution-specific layers depending on whether you want it to override the team-shared settings or not.

As soon as a custom setting layer is added, it appears in the Save To selector in the Options dialog, using which you can save modified settings to the custom layer. You can also modify settings in this layer by editing this layer.

As an alternative to saving modified settings to a specific layer using the Save To button in the Options dialog, you can open a specific setting layer for editing.

You can export a specific subset of settings from any setting layer to a new settings file. This file can be then used on another instance of ReSharper to apply these settings.

As an alternative to adding a custom setting layer, you can copy a subset of settings from this custom layer to one of the existing default or custom layers.

ReSharper also allows you to copy a subset of settings from one mounted setting layer to another.

If necessary, you can clear all settings saved in a specific layer. To do so, right-click the layer and click Reset on the context menu.

Moreover, you can reset all settings in all predefined layers and unmount all custom setting layers, thus returning all settings to their default values. To do that, click Reset All Settings on the toolbar.

You can also disable custom setting layers temporarily by clearing check boxes next to them or unmount a specific custom setting layer by right-clicking on it and selecting Remove on the context menu. Note that the layer file is not removed from disk, you can mount the file later if needed.