There are three useful tools I use with visual studio that I would like to suggest for you today.

First, I like using [Entrian Source Search], especially if your project has a lot of code. It maintains an index which allows you to search for things very very quickly. It’s like find in files, but instant because it’s all pre-indexed for you. The bigger the project becomes, the longer find in files takes. ESS can search your stuff faster.

Second, I suggest getting the [Smart Command Line Arguments] plugin. If you’re working on a project and command line arguments are a thing, this plugin will help a lot. It allows you to create a tree structure for different command lines so you can activate the different command line arguments you want by selectively turning specific arguments on and off. You can even group them within subfolders and turn everything within the subfolder on or off when you like.

Finally, I suggest [Search Everything]. It’s not actually a visual studio plugin, but I use it all the time anyway. Search Everything is similar to Entrian Source Search in that it creates a searchable index for fast results, but instead of finding within files, this searches for specific filenames (or fragments thereof). This is really helpful if you’re looking for a file or asset path somewhere within the project, but don’t remember where it is or the exact name of it. You can search with fragments of the file name you’re looking for, and it will show you all of the files that match your criteria.

Happy coding!

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