One of the easiest and quickest way to keep track of several external files is by using the “Miscellaneous Files” in Visual Studio. When we develop applications in Visual Studio most of the time we do refer several external files. This files may not be required as a part of source code or solution items, but we referred them frequently for some additional purposes. For an example, project diagrams, other project files or code analysis reports etc. In sort, those files you want to use temporarily, but may wanted to refer in between during the development phase.
By default this option is disabled. To enable this, navigate to Tools –> Options –> Environment –> Documents and then check “Show Miscellaneous files in Solution Explorer”
Click on “Ok”. This will introduced a new folder in Solution Explorer as shown below.
The number provided in the text box, is the maximum number of files you to keep track. In this case, it will be able to track 5 files.
Now, if you open any files in Visual Studio which are not part of your Solution, will be listed with in “Miscellaneous Files” section.
If you close those files from Visual Studio editor, reference will still remain in Miscellaneous Files sections. You can just click to view them whenever you want.
This will definitely save a lot time during development and will improve your productivity. And of course, this is not a new features, this exists from earlier versions of Visual Studio. Recently I was using this Miscellaneous Files features very frequently while reviewing some code and analyzing the code analysis data. So thought to share with you all, this might be useful to many of you !
Cheers !
Aj.
