PowerCommands for Visual Studio 2008

PowerCommands is a set of very useful extensions for the Visual Studio 2008 IDE. Here is the list of commands that I found to be useful for me:

CopyPath

This command copies the full path of the currently selected item to the clipboard. It can be executed by right-clicking one of these nodes in the Solution Explorer: The solution node; A project node; Any project item node; Any folder.

Email CodeSnippet

To email the lines of text you select in the code editor, right-click anywhere in the editor and then click Email CodeSnippet.

Undo Close

This command reopens a closed document, returning the cursor to its last position. To reopen the most recently closed document, point to the Edit menu, then click Undo Close. Alternatively, you can use the CtrlShiftZ shortcut. To reopen any other recently closed document, point to the View menu, click Other Windows, and then click Undo Close Window. The Undo Close window appears, typically next to the Output window. Double-click any document in the list to reopen it.

Collapse Projects

I used macros for this. However, this command works much faster than my macros. It collapses a project or projects in the Solution Explorer starting from the root selected node. Collapsing a project can increase the readability of the solution. This command can be executed from three different places: solution, solution folders and project nodes respectively.

Edit Project File

This command opens the MSBuild project file for a selected project inside Visual Studio. It combines the existing Unload Project and Edit Project commands.

Clear Recent Project List

I wrote my own windows application for this kind of functionality. My application was much more functional, it allowed to sort recent project lists as well as delete any records. However, I didn’t have time to rebuild it for Visual Studio 2008. So, this command just clears the Visual Studio recent project list. The Clear Recent Project List command brings up a Clear File dialog which allows any or all recent projects to be selected, which is at least something.

You can go to PowerCommands home page for more information. I think PowerCommands are really useful and should be downloaded by every .NET developer.