Question

In visual studio, when I paste an html snippet into the source window of an aspx/ascx file the IDE re-indents the contents. For instance, if I paste this …

<div><ul><li><a href="#">Item 1</a></li><li>
<a href="#">Item 2</a></li><li><a href="#">Item 3</a></li></ul>/div>

.. the ide will reformat the text to ….

<div>
    <ul>
        <li><a href="#">Item 1</a></li><li><a href="#">Item 2</a></li><li><a
            href="#">Item 3</a></li></ul>
</div>

But really, I want the html formatted like this …

<div>
    <ul>
        <li>
            <a href="#">Item 1</a>
        </li>
        <li>
            <a href="#">Item 2</a>
        </li>
        <li>
            <a href="#">Item 3</a>
        </li>
    </ul>
</div>

How do I change the way VS indents html to the above?

Answer 1

You can change this by introducing custom formatting for the text (HTML) editor, got to:

Options -> Text Editor -> HTML -> Formatting -> Tag Specific Options (Button)
-> Client HTML Tags -> a -> Set Line breaks dropdown to Before and after

Do this for all the tags you want formatted differently.