Visual Studio – would like to see some new features in the next version
Yesterday evening I was sitting on my laptop and thought about what I like in Visual Studio and what I’m missing. Well, at all I’m very happy with Visual Studio, cannot remember any other development environment that is working as good as Visual Studio on Windows.
Here are some features I’m missing or maybe didn’t find yet:
- Close documents automatically when not in use: I would like to have an automatic closing feature that will close files that are not used any more. I mean if you open documents just to see an implementation or some source code this document could be closed after 1 hour or a customizable duration. Some of you know the Windows desktop folder where not used links are placed running a wizard. Of course, documents that are checked out or changed should stay open.
- Find a file in solution explorer: I know that it is possible to enter a filename in solution explorer to find a specific file to edit. More often I’m using similar starting filenames like qualitycheck.aspx, qualitycheckdialog.ascx, qualitychecktab.ascx, qualitycheckedit.ascx,.. And ASP.NET itself creates duplicate starting filenames for the code-behind source files, too. That means I have the .aspx and .ascx again ending with .aspx.cs and .ascx.cs. It would be great to hit a special key, enter a filename in the textbox and have a list of files that fit the search. Using a simple drop-down (live search) it would be much easier to open files in big projects. The textbox itself could find class names or other interesting text, too.
- […] I will add some more missing features later…
What do you think? Or is there already a solution to do this?
11 Comments
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Erik Heemskerk said
Auto-close seems like a major annoyance factor - how is Visual Studio to know whether you want a document to stay open for reference or not? Also, find a file is already implemented in the Productivity Power Tools extension. Try hitting Ctrl+,
Michael Schwarz said
I think it could work like the last used items on Windows 7 apps where you can see the last used documents and pin one if you want to keep it open all days. My problem is that from time to time I have hundreds of files opened something gets slow or will kill devenv.exe.
.net developer said
Resharper can help you, at least with file search
Michael Schwarz said
The Power Tools is what I was searching for, maybe this will be part of the next VS release. Too abd that it is not working with VS2008.
Gregor Suttie said
I want to see a loading icon so that I sont sit at my pc thinkgin is Visual Studio actually going to start - waiting a few minutes before it looks like its going to open is very frustrating - its uses like 60MB before it even gets to the IDE starting up.
Michal said
How about: make it stable and quick to respond already?
Dylan Reisenberger said
StudioTools from SubMain may be another possibility for you. It also offers the find-a-file functionality (and works with the various versions of VS I have used). It also offers a similar quick, incremental search across all type, method, field and property names in the solution (which I couldn't work without, now), and an incremental text search within the current file. I would also welcome the 'collapse all' Shane mentions.
nagavitalp said
Michael, we can find and open files by hitting ctrl+/ and then type >of . This will give list of files matched. This will work in VS 2008 as well.
Venu said
I would refer a search box in solution explorer like in properties!
Michael Schwarz said
@nagavitalp: hm, this is not working in Visual Studio 2008 on my PC, maybe a problem of the schema you have selected on first start?
nagavitalp said
Michael, I dont have VS 2008 on my machine to verify this, but usually i will select something like "C# Development Settings" at first start. Try to change this settings and verify once Go through below link which might be useful http://www.alteridem.net/2007/09/11/quickly-findopen-a-file-in-visual-studio/