Open File in Solution

Visual Assist X provides two new ways to access files in your solution. One is with a dropdown in the VA View; the other is via a new dialog. Keyboard access and filtering make these controls more efficient than the Solution Explorer or FileView.

Use the dropdown in the VA View to access the file list.



Select an entry with the mouse or type a few characters to filter. Files whose names contain the filter string remain in the list, while others are removed. The first file whose name begins with the filter string (if any) is selected by default, otherwise the first file containing the substring is selected. Press Enter to load the file in the editor.



Open a dialog with a toolbar button or shortcut key and see the same list of files.



Hover over a truncated filename to see the full path. Double click a file to open it.

Controlling the Dropdown

Type or paste into the dropdown field to find files whose names contain the content of your clipboard. Hover over entries in the dropdown to see their full path names.

Controlling the Dialog

Type a few letters in the edit field of the dialog to filter the list. A file whose name begins with the filter string is selected by default and centered in the list among other files whose names contain the substring. If no file begins with the filter string, then the first file containing the substring is selected. The list stays alphabetized, and the selection remains centered, allowing you to easily find the file you're looking for. Type unique filter strings to locate files quickly.



Type multiple strings to find files whose names contains all of the strings.



Precede filter strings with a hyphen to exclude matches from the list (negative filtering).

Filtering on Path

By default, the Open File in Solution dialog filters by filename only. To include the full path in the filter, use a backslash in the filter string. This is useful for finding a commonly named file in a particular include directory. Filtering on path is not available in the VA View dropdown.

Miscellaneous

This feature was previously called Open File in Workspace.

Files opened using the Files in Solution dropdown appear automatically in the Most Recently Used (MRU) list. Files opened using the dialog appear only if the Include opened files option is enabled in the MRU.

Shift+Click and Ctrl+Click in the dialog to select multiple items.

Click a column header to sort by the column. Click again to reverse the sort order.

Uncheck Show only files in the current solution to include other open files and windows in the list.

Visual Assist X attempts to open the files you select with the appropriate applications. Resource scripts (*.rc) are opened in the text editor. Unsupported file types, such as library files, are not opened.

Using directory-based parsing, a file need not belong to a solution to appear in Open File in Solution. Control directory-based parsing under VA Options | Projects | File Handling.

Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 users must save workspaces and enable Watch for externally modified headers in the options dialog to keep the list and dropdown updated as files are added to and removed from projects. If not, only files in the workspace when the workspace is opened appear in the list and dropdown.