How to do it...

Go to Tools | Options. Once there, go to the Text Editor | C/C++ section and select it. This dialog displays a window that allows you to toggle Automatic brace completion:

Automatic brace completion is a feature where, when you type {, a corresponding } is automatically typed for you. This feature may irk you if you don't like the text editor inserting characters for you unexpectedly.

You generally want Auto list members on, as that displays a nice dialog with the complete names of data members listed for you as soon as you start typing. This makes it easy to remember variable names, so you don't have to memorize them:

If you press Ctrl + spacebar inside the code editor at any time, the auto list pops up.

Some more autocomplete behavior options are located under Text Editor | C/C++ | Formatting:

I recommend using all of the options at first and then disabling them only if they interrupt your workflow.

You can also autoformat a section of text by highlighting a section of text and selecting Edit | Advanced | Format Selection ( Ctrl + K, Ctrl + F).