Tag Archives: Visual Studio

Quickly Switch To Related Code Or Design File In Visual Studio 2010 [Add-in]

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You may know that Visual Studio Solution Explorer not only loads the all the projects in a solution, but also design, code and other related files of the project, allowing you to quickly navigate and open the required file in editor. Opening related files in Visual Studio editor becomes quite tedious, especially when you’re dealing with multiple individual code files and projects. Wouldn’t it be better if you could easily open related files without having to find them from Solution Explorer? Switch is a small add-in for both Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010 that lets you switch between related files of current code/design file opened in Visual Studio editor, with a click. The add-in comes without any settings or configuration console. It supports switching between CPP and H (header) files, WinForms Designer and C# Code, and XAML and its code files. Read past the jump for more. Read More

View And Share Visual Studio 2010 Snippets With SnippetDoc

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Code Snippets containing code to perform a certain function help developers in application development process. Visual Studio includes an option to insert snippets in current code file via right-click context menu but doesn’t provide convenience of viewing the saved snippets. Although the previously reviewed add-in for Visual Studio 2010 namely, Snippet Designer offers a handy manager to view, design and organize new snipptets, it doesn’t have a convenient snippet viewer, plus there is no option to share snippets across your team members connected in LAN network. SnippetDoc is a standalone, open source application which lets your team members view and access your Visual Studio code snippets from a nicely designed web UI. The application generates a HTML page to view and navigate through snippets saved in specified directory. Read More

Locate And Filter Visual Studio 2010 Solution Files With VSSolutionFinder

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Visual Studio Solution file is a text-based structured file that defines the project workspace, containing information regarding the project environment and project state. The solution file groups project related information required to compile and build an application. Just like previous Visual Studio version, Visual Studio 2010 doesn’t provide option to locate SLN files from the working directory. Therefore, finding SLN files from the working directory can become difficult when you’re dealing with a lot of solutions. VSSolutionFinder is an add-in for Visual Studio 2010 which integrates into File menu, letting you bring up a dedicated search window to find and open solution without having to find them the default way. Moreover, it supports wildcard entries to let you easily filter solutions files. Read More

Favorite Documents – Bookmark Visual Studio Code Files & Organize Them

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If you’re working on multiple Visual Studio projects, you must be looking for a way to quickly access most frequently used code files of each project without having to close current project. Since Visual Studio  2010 doesn’t offer an option to keep a list of frequently used code files handy, you have to manually open code files to quickly switch between them. How about an add-in which lets you open selected code files and other Visual Studio documents on the fly without having to switch between projects manually? Favorite Documents is an add-in for Visual Studio 2010 which is written to quickly open individual Visual Studio documents and also to access specified files in groups. Read More

Switch Between Visual Studio 2010 Settings Files With Settings-Switcher

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Like previous versions, Visual Studio 2010 supports importing and exporting of Visual Studio settings file between PCs. You can include team settings file to keep Visual Studio settings same across all the team member PCs. Sadly, there is no easy way to switch between multiple Visual Studio Settings file, as you have to open Visual Studio Settings folder and replace CurrentSettings.vssettings file with custom settings file. Settings-Switcher lets you manage and switch between multiple Visual Studio settings (.vssettings) files, effortlessly. In addition to changing Visual Studio settings, it groups up all the Visual Studio settings file related options in its own section accessible from Visual Studio Options window, allowing users to create new settings file, view existing ones, and tweak with Visual Studio settings file Load and Format configurations. Read More

Highlight All Occurrences Of Selected Text In Visual Studio 2010

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What would be the most suitable way to highlight all method calls, objects, function arguments/parameters, or plain text string in a Visual Studio document? Sometimes using Visual Studio native Find & Replace utility doesn’t help, as one has to click Find Next multiple times to cycle through all the occurrences of selected text. The Bookmark All feature (present next to Find Next) lets you add bookmarks in left margin to quickly find all the specified search keywords, but it requires you to manually find the entered text string from bookmarked line of code. Highlight All Occurrences provides a solution for this problem. You don't have to enter the keywords to select all the occurrences in the document; just select the word you want to find in the document and it will not only add glyphs in left margin but highlights all the occurrences of selected text string as well. This saves you the trouble of finding all the existences of the text from the document manually. Read More

CleanProject – Remove Bin, Obj & Source Bindings From Visual Studio Project And Zip It

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Before sharing Visual Studio project with others via email or uploading to development project showcasing platforms like, MSDN, it’s recommended to clean your project folder from unnecessary bin, obj, resharper, test results folders and source control bindings. If you send, for instance, source code bindings along with project files, recipient will get source control errors and eventually fail to test your code. CleanProject is an open source application that unclutters your Project folder and automtically zips only those files and folders which are required to build/compile your project. Apart from providing an option to clean files and folders in Visual Studio UI, it integrates with Windows shell context menu, letting you remove redundant Project files from right-click menu. Read More

Apply Alternating Line Color Formatting In Visual Studio 2010 Code Editor

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Do you find it difficult to find certain code modules from an ever-growing source code file? Since Visual Studio 2010 code editor doesn’t provide options to customize the background in order to make code lines look more prominent, users generally try out different themes to get their focus straight on code editor. Alternating Line Color provides a simple yet effective solution. Just like what Format Painter can do with Excel sheets, it applies alternating color to each line of code, so that users can easily differentiate line breaks and code modules. Additionally, it doesn’t require configuring any settings to bring the alternating colored lines formatting. Read More

Compile And Run VB, C# And F# Code Without Installing Visual Studio

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Don’t have Visual Studio installed on your system and you want to compile some C# or VB code to verify the functionality of your project modules? You should try out FastSharp. It’s is a lightweight text editor to compile not only C# and VB code but also F#. It was designed to let users compile and run C# and VB code without having to open or install Visual Studio. All the Import statements required to compile code have already been appended which enables you to compile C# and VB code without any problems. The Import list is configurable. You can access it anytime and change it to meet your coding requirements. A small output console window beneath the code editor lets you identify errors and view outputs. FastSharp also offers a small desktop gadget to compile and run VB, C# and F# code right from the desktop. Read More

Design And Manage Visual Studio Code Snippets With Snippet Designer

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If you use ‘off the shelf components’ code modules in your Visual Studio projects on regular basis, you must’ve used Insert Snippet option which is accessible from VS editor right-click context menu. For those who never tried it before, it lets you access sample along with users-saved code snippets and insert them into current project’s source code files. Since Visual Studio doesn’t have an in-built code snippet manager to organize sample and saved snippets, you should try Snippet Designer. It’s an add-in for both Visual Studio 2008 and 2010, allowing users to not only organize code snippets but lets them design and export code snippets as well. With Snippet Designer enabled, you can select the code module present in your code file and export it to Snippet Designer which lets you define the variables used in snippet and save the snippet file. It also incorporate a small Snippet Explorer which is responsible to insert selected snippet into current code file and search snippet files from your code snippet library. Read More

License Header Manager Adds License Text In Visual Studio Project Files

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Adding SLA (Software License Agreement) details in a huge MS Visual Studio project having hundreds of source code files is arguably not only tiresome but a time consuming task as well. Since SLA details are not supposed to be added into all source code files, it often requires to first filter out the files in which software license agreement details are to be added and then manually copy paste SLA text into each file. If you’re almost done with the VS project and don’t want to take monotonous route to insert SLA details manually, add License Header Manager into your Visual Studio extension list. Read More

Show Vertical Lines At Each Indent Level In Visual Studio 2010

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Are you working on a huge development project in Visual Studio 2010 and not satisfied with the way it shows code indentation? Comparing it with previous versions, VS 2010 offers a much neat way to properly indent code with classic collapsible and expendables options, but still, at times, it seems quite confusing to visually scan the code blocks of one exhaustingly long code file. Indent Guides is an open source add-in for Visual Studio 2010 which enhances the way the code intends appear in Visual Studio 2010 editor. In a nutshell, it displays a vertical line at each indent level, making it easier to scan the code. Read More

Speed Up Visual Studio 2010 Build Time With VSSpeedster Parallel Mode

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Are you working on some massive web or desktop application development project in Visual Studio 2010 and hate waiting forever to compile the app? You must have applied numerous workarounds to reduce the overall build time and to get smooth IDE response. One method is to launch build in MSBuild with parallel mode to make use of all the CPU cores for each project, which is also quite a hectic task. Keeping aside a plethora of parallel build related errors which, sometimes, occur while compiling the project, it’s also laborious to manually revert back to non-parallel build mode. VSSpeedster is a small yet extremely useful open source add-in for Visual Studio which claims to significantly reduce the overall project build time. It changes build related commands to trigger parallel build in order to reduce the time involved in building one huge project. Read More