wmjordan
Suggestion: Persist Multiple Solution Explorer Windows across Solution Loads
There used to be an extension Multiple Solution Explorer that would let user give a custom title and save multiple solution explorers, so they would automatically reappear after solution reload. However it seems it is not working in VS 2019 and the developer does not seem to be interested in developing it further.
Perhaps you can consider something similar, unless it's a major task? It could even be made to wok with tab groups somehow perhaps. The bigger theme being - how to effectively work with large solutions and not get lost or keep 100+ tabs open.
I did not download it yet. I followed the link you posted here and found the latest update was made to work with VS 2019.
Maybe you should use the Q & A feature in the market place of VS to contact the author to support the latest version of VS.
I will, though it will be unlikely to change anything since VS 2019 has been out for half a year already.
In any case the reason I brought this up here is not so much to replicate existing functionality of another extension, but rather to suggest one possible way of making Codist even better in the area of large solution management. I think this area as a whole is somewhat poorly addressed by various extensions, so perhaps, if a workable solution could be found and implemented in Codist, it would great a lot of value.
Perhaps ability to somehow merge this with #80 would be great. The general idea being to make working with large solutions with multiple folder hierarchies and 100s of files more manageable.
There have not been any updates to the extension in question for a long time. Given that apparently it is written in VB, perhaps the author is not inclined to update it at all. In that light, perhaps you can reconsider this feature for say 5.7? Maybe it can be even made to work with #80 since there is some overlapping functionality.
More generally: I don't think there currently exists a nice way to work with biggish solutions in VS, where it is common to work on several areas / features / projects ta the same time (within a single VS session). In my case, for example, I am sort of working on around 10 areas at once: web development, common library concerns (file system, network, etc.), side project 1, side project 2, XAML-based app. Most projects have dependencies on the common library projects, and as such all exist within a single solution. The current situation of having a single or multiple non-persistent Solution Explorers and several windows with tabs (each window dedicated to a different feature/area) is not really ideal - it's hard to manage. In fact, having 50+ projects in the solution, it is sometimes even difficult to quickly go to the desired project in the solution explorer (without having to scroll). So, this is a general description of the problem I would love some extension to address. And I think that it would be a worthwhile area for Codist to expand and address.
Thank you very much for leaving your valuable feedback. I am really sorry that I don't have so much time on this currently, since I am running into some kind of projects like yours in your last post.
Although I don't have a solution with 50+ projects, the development workflow could be similar with yours. I have a solution with a common project with many utility classes, another one with networking classes, a library containing models and protocols, a central service, a WPF application and several legacy projects planned to be migrated to former ones.
I think I understand what you are facing.
But before I begin, I somewhat doubt that the Multiple Solution Explorer alike approach could solve our problems. I will keep an eye on the workflow and try to find out a better solution to this.
Thank you for considering this. Glad to know that you feel a similar need!
I agree that Multiple Solution Explorer is definitely not the whole solution, but I think it certainly could be a part of the solution. Perhaps a simple notion of a window-based mini-workspace could be introduced, with a separate (ideally named) window that has:
- Its own solution explorer (scoped to a specified folder, which can be changed at any time), ideally with custom sync settings (whether or not it tracks active document)
- Its own set of tabs (that you can already do with vanilla VS)
But the idea is that you can create multiple such mini windows/workspaces, as well as save/load them. Loading a mini-workspace would basically add another window with the saved tabs and solution explorer scoped to a folder.
Of course those users with multiple monitors will benefit even more from this setup, as several such windows/workspaces could be displayed at once.
This is just my rough idea of how to tie together Multiple Solution Explorer with tab groups and save/load workspace workflow.