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[To quickly switch between document groups try Task Canvas]

The free Favorite Documents extension lets you create links to frequently used code files and then quickly open them as a group or individually from the Favorites menu in Visual Studio 2022/2019/2017:

Favorites menu in Visual Studio 2010

In addition to the Favorites menu, you can access favorites from the Favorite Documents tool window. To open this window go to the View menu - Other Windows:

Favorite Documents tool window in Visual Studio 2010

Select Add to favorites from the main menu to add the active open document to favorites. Adding a favorite, leave the Create in field blank to create a top level link. Type a new folder name or select an existing folder to create the new link in the subfolder. Check Solution-specific to create the new link only for the current solution, uncheck to create the global (machine wide, cross solution) link:

Adding a favorite to root   Adding a favorite to subfolder

You can add all open documents to favorites at once with the Add all to favorites command:

Adding all open documents to favorites

When you create a favorite from an open document, the current cursor line and column along with the line hash are saved. It lets you to create reliable bookmarks that withstand file modifications.

Adding a Solution Explorer link

You can create links to folders, projects and other items in Solution Explorer down to class members. To create a Solution Explorer link, right click on an item and select Add SE link to favorites from the context menu. When you open this link later, the Solution Explorer window is activated and the item is selected.

Similarly you can favorite solutions. Right click on the root node in Solution Explorer and select Add to favorites. When you open a solution favorite later, the corresponding solution is opened. To open a solution in a new Visual Studio instance, hold down the Ctrl key.

From the context menu you can also favorite the selected document in Solution Explorer without opening it first.

Additionally you can create links to folders in Source Control Explorer. To create a Source Control Explorer link, select a folder in the Source Control Explorer window and select Add to favorites from the main menu. When you open this link later, the Source Control Explorer window is activated and the folder is selected:

Source Control Explorer

You can add links to external documents (doc, pdf) with the Add an External Document dialog. In the Document field you can also enter an url (https://vlasovstudio.com/), program path (notepad.exe) and any other statement executable by the Windows shell. To enter a program with arguments, use double quotes ("notepad.exe" 1.txt):

Add an external document dialog

In the Organize Favorites dialog you can change menu order of folders and favorites dragging them to desired positions. Hovering the mouse cursor over a favorite name shows a tooltip with the favorite path. You can also drag favorites from folder to folder and to the top level:

Organize Favorites dialog

In options you can select whether to show Open all command in the menu and the tool window, and Expand folders by default in the tool window:

Options

Solution-specific links are separate for each of your solutions and stored next to the solution file in xml format with the favdoc.user extension.

Global links are stored in "%APPDATA%\Sergey Vlasov\Favorite Documents\1.0\global.favdoc".

Favorite Documents v2.7.0 - March 5, 2023. Download Now

 

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