The Code Project Browser Add-in for Visual Studio

I received an email today through my blog from one of the developers at SlickEdit, who also happens to be a member of The Code Project community, letting me know about a new Visual Studio Add-in they have developed. You may remember I blogged about the free SlickEdit Gadgets, a really great set of Add-ins for Visual Studio.

Since I am also a member of The Code Project community, I spend a lot of time on the web site answering forum questions and reading the articles posted. I also spend a lot of time in Visual Studio. Thanks to this new Add-in, I can browse The Code Project directly in Visual Studio. I know that I can do this without the Add-in, but the Add-in provides some additional features:

1. You can download files directly into a “My Documents\My Code Project Samples” directory, where they will be automatically unzipped and loaded into the IDE.
2. You can view, reload and delete all of the projects you’ve downloaded through a sidebar.
3. You can keep a list of favorite articles.

The Add-in currently only installs for Visual Studio 2005, but it will run with Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2. In order to run it, you need to follow these steps:

1. Install the Add-in using the MSI installer for VS2005.
2. Copy the CPBrowser.AddIn file from the C:\Users\[username]\Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Addins folder to the C:\Users\[username\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Addins folder. (You might need to create this directory under the Visual Studio 2008 folder first.)
3. Change the following items (in bold italics) in the CPBrowser.AddIn file:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16" standalone="no"?>
    <Extensibility xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/AutomationExtensibility">
        <HostApplication>
            <Name>Microsoft Visual Studio Macros</Name>
            <Version>9.0</Version>
        </HostApplication>
        <HostApplication>
            <Name>Microsoft Visual Studio</Name>
            <Version>9.0</Version>
      </HostApplication>
       <Addin>
           <Assembly>C:\Program Files\Code Project Browser\VS2008\CPBrowser.dll</Assembly>
       </Addin>
   </Extensibility>

They are currently working on an installer for Visual Studio 2008 so you don’t have to do the manual steps. They are also looking to add the following features:

• A URL entry field that allows you to paste the URL of an article and go directly to it.
• Linking the Add-in Favorites to the Bookmarks feature of the web site.
• A fix for people that don’t have the “traditional” C:\Program Files” folder, such as foreign language versions or 64-bit of Windows.

One other feature requested was a progress indicator showing that a page is loading. I’m pretty sure it will be included but as of right now I haven’t heard confirmation that it has been added to the list.

If you use The Code Project, this is definitely an Add-in you want to install. You can download the source code and the installer from The Code Project through the article The Code Project Browser Add-in for VS 2005.