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Suggestion: Solution Explorer projects, folders, files highlighter

Open IneedHelp opened this issue 1 month ago • 3 comments

Hello, I've been using a VS extension for a long time, but it's pretty dead now (has been for years actually), and I liked a specific feature it provided- the capability to highlight projects, folders and files in the Solution Explorer as such:

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on the site it is advertised as

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So if there would be any chance to implement a similar Solution Explorer enhancement (maybe as a new Codist category in the options panel), it would be much appreciated.

I use these highlighters to quickly identify project/folder/files of a certain type or scope/purpose, especially useful in larger solutions with multiple projects.

It's amazing to see how much you've grown and improved this extension, it's really been a journey and thank you for it!

IneedHelp avatar Nov 21 '25 00:11 IneedHelp

Yes, I was also interested in such a feature when I saw that extension. Unfortunately it is closed-source and I have no idea about how to implement it during these years. Maybe they implemented that in a WPF way. But I am no WPF master. @_@!!!

wmjordan avatar Nov 21 '25 12:11 wmjordan

I've never made a VS extension so I am clueless about it also, but I've noticed you're able to access other parts of VS when hiding the account icon and feedback button, so maybe there's a way to drill into the Solution Explorer and add background colors to rows/cells/entries of the Solution Explorer tree view.

IneedHelp avatar Nov 21 '25 19:11 IneedHelp

The account icon and feedback button are different things. They are once created and never changed. So Codist digs into the WPF visual tree, find them out and toggles their visibility. After that, Codist no longer bothers them.

The Solution Explorer behaves in another way. Items are added or removed quite occasionally. Monitoring those items is not recommended. There must be another more "WPF" way, for instance, control template, etc. Unfortunately it can take a lot of time and I can not afford it currently without other references.

wmjordan avatar Nov 22 '25 13:11 wmjordan