A set of free extensions to Visual Studio 2005 has just been released and is now available for download via the Microsoft Download Center.
The new tools include:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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).
- Event Toaster Utility: The
Event Toaster tool is a Visual Studio extension that notifies users
about specific events within the Visual Studio IDE.
These
are certainly welcome additions to Visual Studio's feature
set. I'm glad to see the Super Diff Utility which lets me quickly
see code differences without alt-tabbing out of VS to another compare
program. Perhaps this is already in the works (or someone can
write an Add-in), but it would be even more useful if you could
right-click on the files in Solution Explorer and choose to compare
them.
I'm finding the Source Code Outliner very useful as
well. It presents a list of the members of whatever code file you
have open and lets you click on the member to quickly navigate to the
code.
After installation, you can find the new tools via View
-> Other Windows save for the Event Toaster, which is configured
via Tools -> Options -> Power Toys -> Event Toaster.
-Chris