At any rate, here’s a tip for the OFIS dialog:  you can use the Up and Down arrow keys as well as the Page Up and Page Down keys to navigate up and down through the file list while focus is still in the edit control.  No need to tab around or click in the list to change the selection after having typed in the edit control to filter the list.

This also applies to the Find Symbol in Solution (FSIS) dialog.

http://www.wholetomato.com/support/history.asp

Get all the details in our forums.

Thanks for your patience, and we’ll keep you updated…

Enhanced suggestions are one of the items we’ve added.

VA now offers smarter suggestions based on types in assignments, conditional statements, method arguments and return values. For example, when assigning to a variable “v = “, VA will suggest other variables of the same type from the current scope. For certain types such as bool, VA will also suggest relevant values (“true” and “false”).  In method calls, VA looks at the method signature and makes suggestions based on the type of the current argument. Suggestions are also offered for return values, based on the method’s return type.

Enhanced suggestions are influenced by scope.  For example, VA suggests case/break/default in switch statements and private/protected/public in class definitions. Within a switch statement on an enum, VA suggests the enum items in the case statements.

You may also notice that our suggestions as a whole are less noisy, take up less screen real estate and are more accurate. They contain less of the stuff you will likely never type and better guesses at what you are likely to type. Suggestion listbox tooltips only display once you pause typing, reducing distraction and saving valuable screen real estate, yet preserving the additional information for when you need it. We hope you like the changes!

Give the latest build a try and tell us what you think.

VS2010: VA X and C++/CLI

So how are we doing?  Well, Microsoft seems to have challenged themselves to see how much they can change for VS2010 — new WPF shell, snazzy text editor, MEF-based extensibility, VSIX installers, C++ build system, oh my. This is a major release both on the surface and under the hood, and the changes have impacted VA X on all sides.  But we’re happy to report we have VA X running in VS2010, and we are currently shaking out bugs.

We are excited by the possibilities of the new WPF text editor, as it will enable new VA X features that simply were not possible in earlier IDEs.  But for now, most of our time has been spent simply trying to achieve feature parity with what we already do in the older IDEs.  Once we’ve done that, we can begin the real brainstorming for what’s ahead.

We’ll be releasing a beta of our VS2010 support when Microsoft releases their next public beta.  So until then we’ll post some morsels here to whet your appetite.

The Add Include command is available when you place the caret on a symbol which is declared in a header file that is not directly included in the active file.

If the header that the symbol is defined in is already directly included in the current file, the command is disabled.  Otherwise, it is enabled – even though the dependency may already be satisfied by another directive that itself #includes the header.  This is by design as many programming style guidelines mandate explicit inclusion of declarations (as opposed to happenstance or indirect inclusion).

For types and functions, Add Include straightforwardly adds an include directive for the header in which the type or function is declared.  For variables that are declared in the active file, Add Include acts on the type of the variable (no need to go to the declaration of the variable to add the include for its type).  For variables that are not declared in the active file, Add Include operates in the same way as it does for types and functions.

While the command is available in the usual VA Refactor menus, the easiest way to invoke it (at least for keyboardists) is to place the caret on a symbol and press alt+x, r, n.

As noted in a previous post, VA Snippets support shortcuts.  You wouldn’t want to use the $selected$ reserved string with a snippet that you want to invoke via a shortcut since typing the shortcut will overwrite your text selection (in this case, occurrences of $selected$ would simply be removed from the snippet when it is inserted into the text editor).

Instead of using the $selected$ reserved string, use $clipboard$.

Now you can use a shortcut to invoke the snippet with one small extra step:

• Make your text selection
• Copy (or Cut)
• Type the shortcut and accept the snippet suggestion

When you are in a source window, pressing Alt+M displays the VA X Methods in File list.

Did you know you can filter the list by typing after the list is displayed?  Yeah, most people know that.

Did you know you can filter using multiple strings as in the OFIS and FSIS dialogs?  You can, as of build 1645 (2008.07.10).  The filter supports the use of ‘-’ to exclude items.

We learned that many Visual Studio users only work in the IDE for editing and debugging but not for doing builds.  Because it is not being used for builds, people are working with solutions that are empty or are incomplete, adhoc file collections.

To address editing and navigation productivity in these scenarios, we have added optional support for directory based file discovery. If enabled, VA X will scan for files that are in the same directory as any opened file.  Newly discovered files (those which are not already explicitly listed in the solution) are treated as part of the solution in the eyes of VA X.  The files are listed in the VA X file lists (OFIS and VA View) and symbols declared in them are listed in the VA X symbol lists (FSIS and VA View).

File discovery is controlled via two settings on the Projects|File Handling node of the VA X Options dialog.  The first setting enables this support for only when the loaded solution is empty.  The second enables it independently for when files are present in the loaded solution.  The first setting is enabled by default whereas the second is disabled.  If you use partial solutions as described above, then we recommend enabling the second option.

For those of you still using VC++ 6, care to share why?  Are you still using the VC++ 6 compiler and libraries, or have you modified the build environment to use different tools?

First, to disable the default behavior, uncheck the “Highlight find results” option on the Advanced | Display page of the Visual Assist X Options dialog.

Next, create a keybinding to invoke VAssistX.FindSelected.  Open the IDE Options dialog and navigate to Environment | Keyboard.  Type “findsel” into the “Show commands containing” edit control.  Select “VAssistX.FindSelected” in the command list.  Select “Text Editor” in the “Use new shortcut” list.  Press Alt+K in the shortcut keys control.  Press Assign and OK.

Now, you can press Alt+K on any word (or selection) in the editor to highlight all occurrences of the word (or selection).  The command also updates the Find text so that F3 will move the caret to the next occurrence.  Unlike Ctrl+F3, when you press Alt+K, the caret will not change position.  Press escape to clear the highlighting.

Version 10.5 adds full support for Web and WPF applications, including ASP/ASP.NET, HTML, XML, JavaScript, VBScript, and XAML.  It also adds new features to existing languages, along with many fixes and enhancements to existing features.

New features:

• Support for Web and WPF projects, including ASP/ASP.NET, HTML, XML, JavaScript, VBScript, and XAML
  • New IntelliSense features include smart guesses for JavaScript member lists and HTML code completion with paths to images and other resources
  • Navigate easily between .aspx and code-behind files in ASP.NET
  • Additional VA Snippets
• Highlight find results (Visual Studio .NET and later)
  • Controlled via VA Options|Advanced|Display|Highlight find results
  • Choose highlight color via IDE’s Fonts & Colors list for Find Result (VA X)
• Optional tomato icons in listboxes and tooltips denote content provided by Visual Assist X vs. the IDE
  • Controlled via VA Options|Advanced|Display|Use tomato icons in listboxes and tooltips to mark Visual Assist X content

  

• Find References results grouped by project
  • VA Options|Advanced|Refactoring|Display project nodes in Find References results
  • VA Options|Advanced|Refactoring|Display project nodes in Rename dialog reference lists
• Improved VA Outline behavior
  • VA Outline remembers the expanded state of each node when refreshing its contents
  • Optionally auto-expands nodes as the user navigates in the code editor.

Download the latest version and tell us what you think. We look forward to your feedback!

The Find References results list has a Refresh button that allows you to re-execute a search without moving your caret to an occurrence of the symbol for which you last searched.

For the standard Find References command, Refresh is straightforward: search the solution again.  But what about Find References In File?  Refresh executes the search in the active file – not necessarily the same file that was active for the first set of results.

Bug or feature?

Most products aren’t like this.  Clearly other development tools, IDEs and compilers fall into this category.  And perhaps source control and bug tracking tools qualify, although more indirectly.  But outside of software, I have trouble thinking of similar examples.  Manufacturing?  Chemical reactions?  Books about making books?

What other companies use their own product in the direct production of that very product?

In Visual Studio, add the following directories to the Win32 Platform Include files list (Tools|Options|Projects and Solution|VC++ Directories):

• $(QTDIR)\include
• $(QTDIR)\include\Qt
• $(QTDIR)\include\QtCore
• $(QTDIR)\include\QtGui
• $(QTDIR)\include\QtHelp
• $(QTDIR)\include\QtNetwork
• $(QTDIR)\include\QtOpenGL
• $(QTDIR)\include\QtScript
• $(QTDIR)\include\QtSql
• $(QTDIR)\include\QtSvg
• $(QTDIR)\include\QtTest
• $(QTDIR)\include\QtUiTools
• $(QTDIR)\include\QtWebKit
• $(QTDIR)\include\QtXml
• $(QTDIR)\include\QtXmlPatterns
• $(QTDIR)\src

Make sure that the QTDIR environment variable has been defined (or else manually substitute the Qt directory for $(QTDIR) in the list items).

In the VA X Options dialog, Platform should be set to Win32 (VAssistX|Visual Assist X Options|Projects|C/C++ Directories).

VA X will parse included Qt header files the next time you open a solution that uses Qt.  If you have the Stable symbols in italic option enabled, Qt symbols will be displayed in italics.

In order for VA Snippets to be offered to you while you are typing, make sure that the “Include VA Snippets in listboxes” setting is enabled on the Advanced | Suggestions page in the Visual Assist X Options dialog.

VA Snippets are managed using the VA Snippet Editor.  The editor can be accessed via the “Edit VA Snippets” button on the Advanced | Suggestions page or by invoking the “VAssistX.VaSnippetEdit” IDE command (using the View | Other | Command Window).  VA Snippets are defined independently per file type so that, for example, snippets with VB comments will only be available in VB files.

Assign shortcuts using the VA Snippet Editor.  Shortcuts are simple alphabetic text, unlike standard keybindings which use Ctrl/Alt/Shift modifiers.  Example shortcuts are:

• note
• item
• f
• t
• a
• aa
• xx

When you type a snippet shortcut in the text editor, VA will add the snippet to the suggestion listbox.  If you accept the suggestion, the shortcut that you typed will be replaced with the snippet.