C# – Show control hierarchy in the WinForms designer

.net-2.0cdesignervisual-studio-2008winforms

One of our clients has an old WinForms application that contains forms with a lot of controls on them. Some of those controls have a deep hierarchy and that makes it to hard to select them in the designer.

I need to understand this hierarchy to make modifications to the application to correct some bugs. Is there a way to see this hierarchy clearly? For example, is there something available that is similar to what can be seen in an .aspx source file when you have a breadcrumb of where you are in the HTML hierarchy (HTML > Body > div > etc.)? Or something more visual maybe?

Best Answer

You need to use the Document Outline

View > Other Windows > Document Outline

Or via hotkey

Ctl + ALT + T