Inlay hints

Push-to-Hint mode

Inlay hints can be helpful, but on the other hand they take editor space and may seem redundant in some cases.

Therefore you can use the Push-to-Hint mode (which is enabled by default). It lets you keep the hints hidden, and only view them when needed by pressing and holding the Ctrl key.

If you want inlay hints to be always shown or hidden, you can choose it with the Default visibility selector on the Editor | Inlay Hints | General page of JetBrains Rider settings Ctrl+Alt+S. Whatever you choose for the default visibility, you can override it for specific kind of hints on the corresponding settings pages under Editor | Inlay Hints.

If you choose Always Show mode for inlay hints, you can still quickly toggle them with the corresponding checkbox in the 'Pencils' widget.

Parameter name hints

As an alternative to writing named arguments in method calls, you can make use of JetBrains Rider's parameter name hints — editor adornments that show parameter names next to the corresponding arguments at method calls.

Consider the following method call:

AddCheckbox(true, true, "AutoFill", null);

When you read this code, you have to stop and study the method signature to understand what happens here (you can do it either with the parameter information tooltip or by navigating to method declaration). With parameter name hints, the same call becomes much clearer:

The idea of the parameter name hints is to show parameter names for arguments whose intention may not be clear, but at the same time not to clutter the editor with hints where the argument purpose is obvious, and of course if there are named arguments in the call. To achieve this, JetBrains Rider applies a number of configurable heuristics.

tip

With JetBrains Rider, you can also configure a code style preference that will suggest using named arguments in your code.

Type name hints

Type name hints help you understand types variables and expressions have in different contexts. For example:

• anonymous types,

  

• parameters of lambda expressions,

  

• return types of methods in a call chain,

  

and in many other cases.

If necessary, you can configure type name hints for each specific case.

Type conversion hints

Type conversion hints show implicit type conversions in your code.

In the example below, converting from Vector3D to Vector2D silently loses data (the Z value) and the hint helps us see where this happens.

If you see that a type conversion hint for a specific conversion is not very helpful, you can disable conversion hints for all conversions involving those specific types. To do so, set the caret next to the assignment operator, press Alt+Enter and choose Configure Inlay Hints | Type Conversion Hints | Hide for.... The change will be saved, and you will be able to review or revert it later on the Editor | Inlay Hints | C# | Type Conversion Hints page of JetBrains Rider settings Ctrl+Alt+S.

Code analysis hints

You can display missing returns in functions and missing breaks in switch statements using inlay hints. This lets you immediately understand what exactly is missing:

You can use inlay hints to see places where resource variables are disposed:

To configure visibility of these hints, use the corresponding selectors on the Editor | Inlay Hints | C# | Other page of JetBrains Rider settings Ctrl+Alt+S.

Configure inlay hints

You can toggle and configure inlay hints on the corresponding settings pages under the Editor | Inlay Hints page of JetBrains Rider settings Ctrl+Alt+S.

If you do not use inlay hints, you can disable them by clearing the Enable Inlay Hints in .NET languages checkbox on the Editor | Inlay Hints | General settings page. JetBrains Rider will stop calculating hints thus saving some resources.

However, if you want to see only a few specific kinds of hints, you can set the Default visibility selector on that page to Never Show and then override this with visibility selectors for the desired types of hints.

For parameter name hints, you can additionally hide hints in methods matching specific patterns. To do so, add these patterns at the bottom of the Environment | Inlay Hints | [language] | Parameter Name Hints page of JetBrains Rider settings Ctrl+Alt+S.

Here are some examples of patterns:

• System.Math.* matches all methods whose FQN starts with System.Math

• System.Math.*(*, *) matches all methods from System.Math namespace with two parameters

• (*info) matches all single-parameter methods where the parameter name ends with info

• (key, value) matches all methods with parameters key and value

• Put(key, value) matches all Put methods with parameters key and value

When your caret is at a code item that has an inlay hint, you can press Alt+Enter, choose Configure Inlay Name Hints, or instead, right-click a parameter hint, and then pick one of the commands, which allow you to:

• hide parameter hints for all calls of the method, or type name hints that apply for the current item (if you want to show hints that you disabled, you can find the corresponding item or exception pattern in the options page and remove it),

• disable inlay hints altogether (you can enable them later in the options page),

• or open the options page for detailed configuration.

You can configure the color of inlay hints on the Editor | Color Scheme | Language Defaults page of the IDE settings Ctrl+Alt+S — choose the Inline parameter hints | Default item.