Visual Studio 2005 IDE Enhancements

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Visual Studio 2005 IDE Enhancements are a set of Visual Studio extensions that are designed to make you more productive. These enhancements are directly integrated into the Visual Studio IDE. This set of enhancements includes Source Code Outliner, Visual C++ Code Snippets, Indexed Find, Super Diff and Event Toaster tools. All these tools except the IDE Event Toaster can be invoked from Visual Studio’sView.OtherWindows menu group. The Event Toaster tool can be configured from the Tools Options dialog under the PowerToys node. The Visual C++ Code Snippets can be invoked on any C++ source file. Previously, these enhancements were only available via the Visual Studio 2005 SDK. This installation does not require Visual Studio 2005 SDK.

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If you are interested in building your own Visual Studio extensions, you can download the Visual Studio 2005 SDK from here to get started.

Source Code Outliner

The Source Outliner tool is a Visual Studio extension that provides a tree view of your source code's types and members and lets you quickly navigate to them inside the editor.

Source Outliner enables you to perform the following tasks:

  • Navigate a C# or Visual Basic source file in a tree view.
  • Navigate to an item via the keyboard or the mouse.
  • Filter the tree based on the code element name.
  • Filter the tree based on the code element type.

The following steps walk you through using this tool.

  • Start Visual Studio.
  • Open your favorite VB.NET or C# solution or create a new one.
  • Select the 'Source Outliner Power Toy' menu item under View.OtherWindows menu group.
  • The Source Outliner tool window docks to the left side of the Visual Studio window next to the Code Editor window.
  • Click a method or variable name in Source Outliner and the code associated with what you clicked displays near the top of the Code Editor window.
  • You can use the 'Filter by Type' to filter different types that you would like to view.

Visual C++ Code Snippets

The Visual C++ Code Snippets tool lets you insert snippets in your code by using a pop-up menu that contains programming keywords. VB.NET and C# languages have this functionality in Visual Studio 2005.

To use this tool:

  • Start Visual Studio 2005.
  • Create a new C++ Win32 Windows project.
  • Open a .cpp file and right-click.
  • From the context menu select 'Insert Snippet' and choose any snippet you want.

 

Indexed Find

The Indexed Find tool is a Visual Studio extension that uses the Microsoft Indexing Service to provide improved Search capabilities to the integrated development environment (IDE). It sends the results of a search to the Output Window.

It allows you to:

  • Search a set of folders using the Microsoft Indexing Service.
  • Scope the search.
  • Filter the search results.

The following steps walk you through using the tool.

  • Start Visual Studio.
  • Select the 'Indexed Find Power Toy' menu item under View.OtherWindows menu group.
  • In the Indexed Find dialog type any text that you want to search.
  • If this is the first time you are using this tool the 'Look in' drop down should be empty. You can create a folder set to look in by clicking the button next to drop down. Clicking it brings up 'Choose Search Folders' dialog. In this dialog do the following:
    • Create a new folder set by clicking the ‘New Folder Set’ button and specifying a name for the folder set.
    • Next we need to add folders to search in. Click the 'Manage Catalog' button.
    • In the 'Manage Catalog' add folder(s) you want to search. Click 'OK'.
    • In 'Choose Search Folders' Select the folder set you created and then select folders in the 'Available folders' list and click 'Add'. Click 'OK'.
  • The 'Look in' value should now have your folder set selected.
  • Click 'Find All'.
  • If the folder has never been indexed then you will get a warning saying the catalog was not up to date. Click 'Yes' to continue search. You will not see any results in the output window till cataloging of that folder is complete.  It might take some time before you will see the results.

Requirements:

  • Windows 2000 Server and above
  • Visual Studio 2005
  • Indexing service enabled. To enable Indexing service do the following:
    1. Open the Computer Management MMC.
    2. Right-click Indexing Service, and then click Stop.
    3. Right-click Indexing Service, click All Tasks, and then select Performance Tune.
    4. In the Indexing Service Usage dialog box, select Customize.
    5. In Indexing Service Performance Indexing, slide the slider bar to Instant.
    6. Right-click Indexing Service, and then click Start.

Super Diff Utility

The Super Diff Find tool is a Visual Studio extension that compares text files. It uses color coding and graphics to show the difference between the files in deleted text (red), changed text (blue), inserted text (green).

It allows you to:

  • It allows you to view differences between the files.
  • Navigate the changes.
  • Configure the viewing preferences i.e. showing only changed lines, showing all lines, navigation pane etc.

The following steps walk you through using the tool.

  • Start Visual Studio.
  • Select the 'SuperDiff Power Toy' menu item under View.OtherWindows menu group. By default this tool window is configured to open as a tabbed document.
  • In the tool window select two files that you want to compare.
  • Click 'Compare' button.
  • You can then use the tool bar or the drop down menus to configure the view that the tool window presents.

Event Toaster Utility

The Event Toaster tool is a Visual Studio extension that notifies users about specific events within the Visual Studio IDE using one of the following gestures:

  • Popping up textual notification messages or also known as "toasts" from an icon in the Windows notification area.
  • Running a command to execute an application.
  • Running Visual Studio macros.
  • Playing a .wav file that you specify.

The tool allows you to configure the following events:

  • Build Done
  • Code Analysis Done
  • Entering Break Mode
  • Execution Session Complete
  • Document Opened
  • Document Saved

The following steps walk you through using the tool.

  • Start Visual Studio.
  • Bring up the Options dialog via the Tools menu.
    • Open the PowerToys category and select EventToaster.
    • Check 'Enable Built-in Toasts'.
    • In the 'Events' tree select 'Build Done' event under the Build node.
    • Check 'Taskbar Notification' and add some text in the 'Text:' field.
    • Click 'OK'.
  • Create a Visual Basic.NET or C# project.
  • Build the solution.
  • Observe the popup with the Text that you added to the ‘Taskbar Notification’ option.