Every so often a software package comes along that drastically changes your life. Makes it easier, makes you more productive, and is fun to use. For me, that product was CodeRush.

CodeRush is a code authoring tool that works with both the 2003 and 2005 versions of Visual Studio .Net. Note I say code authoring, not code generating. With a code generator, you give it some input and it whirs and grinds and boom out comes a big hunk of code.

CodeRush on the other hand helps while you are writing code. For example, let’s do something like a C# switch statement. First, let’s see we have a parameter passed in named Switcher. I’ll set a local variable to it:

Next, I’ll copy the localSwitch variable to the clipboard. Now I’ll type in the word switch, and hit space. When I do, this is what you’ll see:

CodeRush made the assumption since I had a variable already in the clipboard, that’s probably what I wanted to switch on. It then constructed the basic swich for me, including braces, my break and what you see above. It also placed my cursor right on the L in localSwitch with the variable highlighted, so that if it’s not what I wanted all I have to do is start typing.

That’s just one example, CodeRush has hundreds of built in templates that will make your coding faster. In addition, when you buy CodeRush you also get it’s sister product RefactorPro. RefactorPro makes that critical refactoring stage of development so much nicer.

Let’s take a tiny example. Suppose you need to change the order in which two parameters occur in a method. Not only will RefactorPro simply let you drag one parameter in front of the other, it will then search through your code and automatically update all references to the method for you.

There are way more features then I could cover in a single, or even a week’s worth of blog posts. Instead, I want you to go look at their training videos, which you will find here:

http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/IDETools/CodeRush/training.xml

or http://shrinkster.com/jx0

There’s no charge to watch, no special software, and they’ll give you a great idea on what CodeRush and RefactorPro can do for you.

For a complete product overview you can visit:

http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/IDETools/CodeRush/Index.xml

or http://shrinkster.com/jwz

If you asked me what could I name that was negative about the product, about the only thing I could point to is the price. At $250 (US) it’s not cheap. However this product has saved me so many hours it’s well worth the money. If you work for even a small company it shouldn’t be a great effort to get them to cover the cost.

If you asked me what the best thing was, I’d say the support. Developer Express runs it’s own news server, and the developers are right in there as often as they can, answering questions, and asking the users what features they want in the next release. I’ve never seen any company provide the level of support DevExpress does with this product.

The best part of all this is you can discover CodeRush for yourself, for free. You can look at the training videos and newsgroups, then download an evaluation version which you can run with no restrictions (it’s not crippleware). Last I checked they asked you to send an e-mail to their support staff and they’d send you the details.

CodeRush is a great tool that I can’t recommend enough. It has made me so much more productive, and with a minimal amount of effort I think you will be to.

Standard disclaimer, I don’t work for DevExpress, make no money off sales, or receive any compensation what so ever, I just think it’s a cool developer tool!

One of the great things about Microsoft is the way all of their stuff is extensible. For years folks have been writing macros, add-ins for the office tools. In case you hadn’t noticed, Visual Studio is just as extensible as the rest of the Microsoft tools.

In this first article, we’ll look at making a shortcut to a handy VS command. First, we’ll need to fire up SlickEdit Gadgets Command Spy tool. What? You haven’t installed it yet? OK, go read my blog posting from November 14^th (https://arcanecode.wordpress.com/2006/11/14/visual-studio-add-ins-slickedit-gadgets/ ). The rest of us will wait.

Back now? Great. OK, as I was saying fire up Command Spy. You’ll see it’s window appear, just slide it to an out of the way space, or dock it. In this example, we’ll want to create a shortcut toolbar to collapse and expand all of our code regions with one click.

There’s already a menu option to do this, click on Edit, Outlining, Collapse To Definitions. (Note if you don’t see the Outlining option, make sure you’ve clicked in the code window.) Glancing down at the Command Spy window, you will see that the command issued was Edit.CollapseToDefinitions.

Great, jot that down, and let’s run another command. Click on Edit, Outlining, Toggle All Outlining. You’ll see a new command has shown up in Command Spy.

Edit.ToggleAllOutlining is what we are looking for here. Now that we have the commands we want, let’s create a toolbar and hook them in.

Right click in the toolbar, and select Customize. In the Customize dialog, click on New. Give your toolbar a good name, it’s also helpful if you use something like your name to distinguish it from the rest of the built in bars. I named it ArcaneOutlining. You’ll see your new toolbar pop up to the right of the Customize window. (The red arrow is pointing at it.)

I’m now going to drag the new toolbar under the Customize window, just so it will look decent for the next screen capture.

Now we need to drag our commands onto the toolbar. Click on the Commands tab of the Customize window. Under Categories, scroll down to Edit. Now in the Commands list area, scroll down to Outline Toggle All, and drag it onto the toolbar. Then, pick Outline Collapse to Definitions, and drag it into the toolbar. In this shot, you’ll see what it looks like when you’re done.

OK, we now have our commands, but all that text looks pretty ugly. Right click on the Outline Toggle All command, and you’ll get a menu. Click in the Name area, and you can type over the name of the menu option. I’m going to replace Outline Toggle All with + (a plus sign).

Once done, close the Customize dialog, then you can drag your toolbar to an appropriate spot. Use the – button to collapse everything, and the + to toggle it back.

While I’ve picked out some specific commands, you can use this technique for any command that Visual Studio can produce, and create your own customized toolbars.

If you tend to organize everything in your projects using file names, then you will love this add-in. VSFileFinder, available at http://www.zero-one-zero.com/vs/, adds a simple window to your Visual Studio environment. I elected to dock this window in the bottom center, where my output sits. There’s a text box across the top and a list box under it.

The text area lets you key in a file name (or part of one) to filter off of. The list area shows all the files in your project that match the entered filter. Clicking on a file will let you open it, or if already open will bring it to the foreground.

As you can see, entering “fo” matched all my Form1 files. Interestingly enough it also matched AssemblyInfo since it also contains “fo”.

That’s about it, VSFileFinder is a simple, one task tool that adds one specific type of functionality. But it does it well, and for free!

Update Feb. 9, 2008: Version 4 is now out, but there’s no new blog post. Follow the link below and scroll down through the comments to find the link to version 4.

Another handy add-in that brings functionality to the Solution Explorer is CoolCommands. Version 3 is available from http://weblogs.asp.net/gmilano/archive/2006/05/10/446010.aspx, and adds a whole series of new menu commands to the right click menu in the Solution Explorer window. It also adds a few new menu command to the Code Editor window. Since the site doesn’t do a great job of documenting all the features in the current release, here is a brief list of all the commands that get added.

Commands for the Code Editing Window

DemoFont – In the edit window, right clicking has a new menu option called DemoFont. This will let you quickly toggle back and forth to a larger size of the font you’ve been running. Clicking again will return you to the font size you previously had.

Wheel Font Zooming – My guess is this lets you use the mouse wheel to adjust the font size, but it didn’t work on my system. However the other commands are so useful I’m willing to overlook one dud.

Open File – This is very cool. Within comments you will sometimes see something like “// See the class file Xyz.cs for more info”. With cool commands, you simply right click on Xyz.cs and pick Open File, and that file will open in VS.

Commands for the Solution Explorer

Collapse All Project – Simple menu option to collapse all the projects in your Solution Explorer’s tree.

Command Prompt Here – Opens a command window in the directory where the project sits. (Only appears when clicking on a project).

Open Container Folder – Opens a Windows Explorer where the current file happens to reside.

Reference Manager – Lets you manage the references for the solution.

Resolve Project References – Validates all of your project references.

Copy and Paste References – Lets you create a reference for one project and paste it into another project. Makes setting up references between projects nice and easy.

Add Projects From Folder – Allows you to easily import one or more projects that are stored in a folder.

Commands for the open files tabs

Locate in Solution Explorer – This is cool, in the little tab markers at the top of the editing window, right click and pick this option. The solution explorer will then highlight the file for you.

One thing to note, technically CoolCommands is not an Add-In. While it adds new menu options, it cannot be loaded or unloaded from the Tools, Add-In Manager.

This free tool adds some nice functionality to your VS environment, and is well worth the download.