Can Visual Studio 2010 do ".inc" file syntax highlighting?

Can Visual Studio 2010 be configured to do syntax highlighting on ".inc" files? We have numerous large projects with tons of these ".inc" files (asp files) and so changing the file extension to ".asp" is not an option. All I want Visual Studio 2010 to do is treat these ".inc" files just like ".asp" files when it comes to syntax highlighting.

I've tried "Open With..." and selected the HTML Editor, which is the ".asp" default, but that di开发者_如何学Cd not work. I tried about every other editor in the list and none of them worked.

I know Notepad++ (among others) can do this, but I would prefer this be done in Visual Studio 2010 - using another IDE or text editor is not the answer I'm looking for here.

In Visual Studio...go to Options -> Text Editor -> File Extension. Type in 'inc' as extension and editor as 'Web Form Editor'. You may need to close then re-open your currently open .Inc pages...Hope this helps

I found both the 'Web Form Editor' and 'HTML Editor' to be less than ideal for me. Both of them appeared to highlight the syntax of the HTML ok, but the VBScript keywords were left in standard black text along with everything else.

While not ideal, I followed the instructions from the other answers, but substitude Visual Basic as the editor type and that worked much more to my liking (as they were include files, there is little HTML in them).

• Options -> Text Editor -> File
• Extension. Type in 'inc' as extension and set editor as 'Visual Basic'.
• Close and re-open any '.inc' files and highlighting should be visible.

Antonio's solution worked for me. I did have to close and reopen files, but after I re-opened them the highlighting was visible. Thanks!

Options -> Text Editor -> File Extension.
Type in 'inc' as extension and set editor as 'Web Form Editor'.
Close and re-open any '.inc' files and highlighting should be visible.

Incidentally, this also works in Visual Studio 2005.

Use the File Extension, Text Editor, Options Dialog Box. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/4k7w5e5s.aspx

-update-

I see the same behavior :-( Will let you know if I find anything.

As a workaround, could you rename all your .inc files to .asp?

This has the added advantage that if a request is made for the inc file directly (highly unlikely but possible; and assuming you have the incs in the web directory), your code will be exposed unlike .asp where it is processed and rendered.

I really wanted to add a comment, because this is not a direct answer, but apparently you need 50 reputation for that.

I've found that in Visual Studio 2005 (again, in Tools -> Options -> Text Editor -> File Extension), both "Web Form Editor" and "User Control Editor" highlight both the HTML and the VBScript.

Amadiere mentioned that "Web Form Editor" doesn't highlight the VBScript in 2010, but maybe it's worth trying "User Control Editor", if that's an option in 2010.

In Visual Studio 2010 and 2012 Express it best works for me when I use "Microsoft Visual Basic" with my .inc files. Nevertheless, it's still not the same as with .asp files as there's no Autocomplete nor IntelliSense (Ctrl+Space, Ctrl+Shift+Space etc.) with the .inc files.

It should be made possible defining that .inc files are to be treated just as .asp files.

I agree with Purple Coder:

You should not name the files containing ASP code as .inc. It is a security risk. Anyone who knows/can guess the filename can open it in a browser and view the actual code inside the file.

But, first of all in my case this is an intranet page and therefore not very risky, as most people there would somehow find the files on the server anyway. I'm also not sure where this naming convention came from. It was there before I started. This was started on Visual Studio 6.

But, to avoid this risk there's a simple solution: add .inc in the Application Mapping of the IIS in the same manner as .asp.

You should not name the files containing ASP code as .inc. It is a security risk. Anyone who knows/can guess the filename can open it in a browser and view the actual code inside the file.