Stop opening new editor on compile in vs2015

Hi,

for some reason a new editor is always opened when I compile in vs2015.
This wasn’t the fact for me before upgrading from 4.10 > 4.13.

Is there anyway to stop that?
I do not want to use the compile button in the editor, because it’s more simple hitting F5 in VS :wink:
Thanks

Hi xhallix,

By default, pressing F5 in Visual Studio will build the current startup project and then, if the build completes successfully, launch the project in Visual Studio’s debugger. If you just want to build the project without launching it, you will need to use the Build project command in Visual studio either by right-clicking on your project in the Solution Explorer, or from the Build menu at the top of the Visual Studio window. You can also set a hotkey for building in Visual Studio if you want to be able to do this without using a menu.

Same here!
Every time i “Start without debugging” (CTRL-F5, official Epic-Tutorials teach this is the way to do it!) it will compile and then open a new instance of the Editor instead of just using the already opened instance from where visual studio got loaded via double-clicking a class. This is driving me insane by now! And yes, wasn´t like that when i used earlier versions, seems to be new (unwanted) behaviour!

ok thanks for the explanation, then I’m using the standard build (ctrl + shift + b).
was not sure if this was intended behavior

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So, with standard build (ctrl-shift-b) the editor-window doesn´t get focus again, is that intended? (Ctrl-Shift-B and then Alt-Tab instead of just Ctrl-F5 (or in my case just F5 as i exchanged the hotkeys) is a bit cumbersome to be honest!) And wasn´t this different (and also better) before? Or am i confusing this with that other engine i had to use in my job the last months? I am used to hit F5 (originally Ctrl-F5) to let the compiler build and showing the Unreal Editor again (focussing it). Well, it still does it, just in a new instance of the Editor every time…so i keep having to close the older instances now.
Same with Visual Studio…if i open a Class from within the UEditor, it starts visual studio and opens the class, all fine…but when i double-click the class again in the Editor afterwards, Visual Studio doesn´t get Focus, only it´s Tab in the TaskBar starts blinking. So i need to Alt-Tab anyway, no need to double-click the class within the UEditor…just that i´m used to do it this way! :wink:
Please tell me it´s just some sort of misconfiguration on my side…else i´d need to change my behaviours completely, relying on Alt-Tab from now, which is not too uncomfortable but also i still think it was better before!

Using Ctrl+Shift+B will work fine if you are using the binary version of the Engine that is installed via the Launcher. Building the solution in this case will only build your game project since you cannot build the Engine code. However, if you ever decide to build the Engine from source code, using Ctrl+Shift+B will not only build your game project, but also the Engine. Depending on your computer, that could be a rather long build.

What you might consider doing is setting a custom shortcut in Visual Studio for the Build.BuildSelection option. Then all you would need to do is select your game project in the Solution Explorer and use your shortcut to build it. You could also use the Build.BuildOnlyProject option, but for that to work you would need to make sure you have set your game project as the StartUp Project in the solution (it would appear bold in the Solution Explorer).

If your project is already open in an Editor window, there is no need to launch the Editor again, which is what Visual Studio does when you choose the Start Without Debugging option (originally Ctrl+F5). Simply building your game project after making code changes will result in a hot reload in the Editor and your changes will be available in the existing window. You would just have to switch back to it. If you use the Start Without Debugging option with an Editor window already open, it will just result in an unnecessary hot reload in the open window, since Visual Studio is going to launch the Editor again anyway. I am not sure there is anything we can do to prevent Visual Studio from opening another Editor window in this instance since that behavior is inherent to what you are asking Visual Studio to do.

I do see your point about focus not being given to Visual Studio when a code class in the Content Browser is double clicked. I have entered UE-37120 to see if we can find a way to make focus transfer to Visual Studio in that instance.

Unfortunately my workflow for opening projects in the Editor normally involves simply double clicking the .uproject file. I normally don’t open projects from Visual Studio unless I am actually trying to debug them, so I am not familiar with how this process may have worked in previous versions of the Engine.

It works fine. Thanks