Proposed VS 10 Features Released as a VS 2008 Add-On

Posted by Jonathan Allen on Mar 05, 2008 12:03 PM

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Microsoft has released a demo of potential Visual Studio 10 features as an extension for VS 2008. The features, collectively called PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2008, include the source code.

Copy and Paste Commands

These commands make it easier to move information between projects via the clipboard. They include:

• Copy and Paste Class – This is a bit of a misnomer as it copies all the classes in a specific project item. If the project item has sub-files (e.g. page.aspx and page.aspx.cs) then they will also be copied
• Copy and Paste References – This should prove useful when making similar projects.
• Copy As Project Reference – Combined with the above, this is much faster than the Add References dialog.

Projects

• Collapse Projects – Just a shortcut for collapsing the project tree.
• Edit Project File – This opens the MSBuild for the selected project. Warning, this will cause the project to be unloaded.

Refactoring

• These new refactoring are only available for C#. VB gets its refactoring support from third-party vendors.
• Extract Constant – This turns a string into a constant. VB has this through the free version of Refactor.
• Remove and Sort Usings – This sorts the "using" statements for all files in a project, removing the ones that are not in use. VB has this through the paid version of Refactor.
  Note: The documentation incorrectly states this is equivalent to VB's Remove Unused References. It is not and C# still has no way to automatically remove references to DLLs that are not actually used.

Miscellaneous

• Open Containing Folder – This opens the Explorer the same as if you opened the file and right-clicked on its tab.
• Open Command Prompt – This opens a Visual Studio command prompt.
• Unload/Reload Projects – These commands may be useful when dealing with non-integrated source control. Perhaps unloading projects not currently needed also has a performance impact.

For a full list see the readme file that comes with the installer and source code.

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