Our project documents are currently maintained using TFS. Visual Studio (2013) allows me to view all the checked in documents through the Team Explorer window, under Documents.
In Team Explorer, when I double click a document, it first opens up an Internet Explorer window, which downloads a copy of the server file. I have to then open up the document manually using Word/Excel etc. which then gives me the option to Check Out.
Involving Internet Explorer to open up a file seems really convoluted. Is there any way to configure/launch the appropriate Office program directly from Visual Studio?
Found a solution: was fairly obvious if I'd looked properly.
Team Explorer -> Documents -> Right click on document -> Edit
Is there any way to change the default directory Visual Studio 2010 uses when you add a source file through Add -> New Item?
Add New Item simply adds the item based on which project directory you're currently in or have selected in your Solution Explorer. If you want to change where it gets added then select the target location in the Solution Explorer first.
This behavior is obvious when right-clicking in the Solution Explorer, but it's also the same when using Project -> Add New Item....
Since my comment seems to be the actual answer, I repost:
In the toolbar of Solution Explorer, there's a button "Show all files" (or similar, I'm using the German version). This switches the view to directories, rather than filters. In this view, you can right-click on the desired target folder to add items.
This does not actually change the default directory, but since you have to click somewhere anyway to add an item, this is the easiest approach.
Note that even when only using Visual C++, I'd recommend the Productivity Power Tools extension, which comes with Solution Navigator. In C++, this is not as powerful as with .NET, but it still has several features that are useful in C++ and can fully replace Solution Explorer.
Try going to tools -> options -> Project and Solutions.
I know this post is old... but maybe someone will stumble upon it... like I did today...
I had the same "problem":
I have a dedicated directory for icons.
When I need to add an icon to the resource file, Visual studio takes me to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE"
To fix the problem, after I "browsed" to the desired folder, I right-clicked the favorites of the "open file" dialog and selected "add current location to Favorites".
Next time you will get this dialog, you simply have to look for the folder in the favorites, and click it.
How to check file is checked out by whom? I'm using Team Explorer in Visual Studio 2010
In source control explorer, find the file you're interested in, right click and go to properties. In there you will see a status tab that shows you where the file is checked out to (user & workspace) and any pending actions on the file.
See this images Notes : its related to vs 2008
step1:
step 2 :
Use View -> Other Windows -> Source Control Explorer
or
Use an 3rd party tool like TFS Sidekicks (http://www.attrice.info/cm/tfs/)
I have a huge solution with multiple projects. Sometime I need to navigate to a file in Solution Explorer. Using the VS 2010 'Navigate To' feature I can open any file by name in Visual Studio 2010 but I want to be able to select the file in Solution Explorer as well?
There's an option to track the active (open and viewed) item in the solution explorer. If the file is in view, the file in the solution explorer will be selected.
Tools->Options->Projects and Solutions->Track Active Item in Solution Explorer
VS2012 added a new command called SolutionExplorer.SyncWithActiveDocument. The default shortcut for c# is Ctrl+[,S
This command will navigate to the active file in the Solution Explorer.
Also, it seems that you need to have the "Track Active Item in Solution Explorer" option turned off.
With ReSharper installed Shift+Alt+L will find the current file in Solution Explorer in Visual Studio 2008+.
I found the track option to be a little annoying.
I prefer to use DPack. It contain "Locate In Solution Explorer" operation, plus many other features (some are less powerful in VS2010, like their browsers), and it's free.
Note that ReSharper also have the locate feature that works batter than DPack's (in some cases, DPack's locate won't work if the file is collapsed behind folders), but you don't want to buy ReSharper only for this feature.
Brian Schmitt has a great Locate File in Solution Explorer – Visual Studio Macro post for this. The macro is extremely simple and quick. Basically it toggles the setting
Tools->Options->Projects and Solutions->Track Active Item in Solution Explorer
so that the current file ends up selected in the Solution Explorer but, because it is not left on, you don't get irritated by Solution Explorer nodes being expanded for all the files you access.
Public Sub LocateFileInSolutionExplorer()
DTE.ExecuteCommand("View.TrackActivityinSolutionExplorer")
DTE.ExecuteCommand("View.TrackActivityinSolutionExplorer")
DTE.ExecuteCommand("View.SolutionExplorer")
End Sub
Bind a Keyboard ShortCut to this custom macro to effectively create what should be a built-in Visual Studio feature.
If you have ReSharper and want to add "Locate in Solution Explorer" to the tab's context menu:
Go to Tools -> Customize -> Commands -> Context Menu
Select "Other Context Menus | Easy MDI Document Window".
Click "Add Command".
Choose "Resharper" -> "ReSharper_LocateInSolutionOrAssemblyExplorer" (in VS2019, the category name was changed to "Extensions")
"OK" -> "Close"
Now, when right click on any tab and you'll see a new option: Locate in Solution Explorer.
UPDATE:
Following the comment from #jeremy-paskali, you can set a keyboard shortcut for this command:
Go to Tools -> Customize -> "Keyboard..."
Search for "ReSharper.ReSharper_LocateInSolutionOrAssemblyExplorer" in the "Show commands containing" field and select it.
Review the currently assigned shortcuts in the drop down below.
Make any changes, if needed.
"OK" -> "Close"
Visual Studio 2012 has a new shortcut Ctrl [, S. Yes you have to type Ctrl [ and then release and then immediately type S (or click the little sync icon at the top of Solution Explored). It will synchronize to the item.
Of course you can change the shortcut. I think I'll try Alt+L for locate.
If you want to change the shortcut, it's command name under Options\Environment\Keyboard is SolutionExplorer.SyncWithActiveDocument.
Usually this is more useful than always tracking, which in older versions always was a disaster because it would track 100 items in a row and then be jumping all over the place...
I know its little too late, but hope it helps someone else. The best option now is to install Microsoft Visual Studio add on called - Productivity Power Tools.
http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/d0d33361-18e2-46c0-8ff2-4adea1e34fef
With this comes "Solution Navigator" (alternative to Solution Explorer, with a lot of benefits) - which then you can use to filter the files to only show "Open". You can even filter files to show "Edited" and "Unsaved".
In the event you want to only track the current file through a
keyboard shortcut - the activity is
"View.TrackActivityinSolutionExplorer" (assign keys here -> Tools -
Options - Environment - Keyboard)
Credit (James' comment)
This worked for me
There are several build-in ways you can accomplish this nowadays:
Configure VS to track the active item in Solution Explorer: This can be accomplished by selecting "Track active item in Solution
Explorer" at
Tools > Settings > Projects and Solutions > General
Use "Sync with active document": This can be accomplished in 2 ways.
Firing the SolutionExplorer.SyncWithActiveDocument command by using the default key combination CTRL+]+S
CTRL+)+S if you happen to be using an AZERTY keyboard like me.
By using the "Sync with active document" button on top of the Solution Explorer. The button looks like 2 apposing arrows on top of each other.
If you're version is older then VS2019 Version 16.10.2 then this button looks like this:
From VS2019 Version 16.10.2 onwards this button will look like this:
And yet again Microsoft has changed the button icon in more recent versions of VS 2022:
In Visual Studio 2010 you can turn on the "Track Active Item in Solution Explorer" option. This will mean whenever you switch between documents the new document gets selected in Solution Explorer. This can be irritating if your solution has lots of folders, because as you move around files in your solution all the folders will be left open.
Visual Studio 2012 introduced the new "Sync with Active Document" feature. Three is a button for it at the top of Solution Explorer, or you can use the shortcut Ctrl + [, S.
This is actually built in to visual studio without the need for ReSharper (which I love BTW).
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/zainnab/archive/2010/03/29/track-active-item-in-solution-explorer-vstipproj0011.aspx
If you want to select the file in the solution explorer on command and don't want to install anything then I would recommend this macro.
I've tested it, setting the shortcut to Alt+T, and I can confirm that it works with VS 2010.
Thanks to Dan Vanderboom for writing it.
For Visual Studio 2017 using a French AZERTY keyboard the command is the same as stated by Aaron Carlson but the keyboard shortcut is different.
The AZERTY keyboard shortcut to navigate to the active file for c# is Ctrl+),Ctrl+S
I checked the shortcut hadn't changed for QWERTY users in VS2017 on this page
http://visualstudioshortcuts.com/2017/
Visual Studio doesn’t offer an easy way to locate the current file you’re editing in the Solution Explorer on demand. You can set the solution explorer to always stay in sync with this simple setting:
Tools > Options > Projects and Solutions > General. Check “Track active item in Solution Explorer”.
Thanks to Cory House
I want to know where the solution/project is stored on my hard drive.
I would have thought right clicking on the project from within Visual Studio would have the information on where it is stored on my hard drive, but it doesn't.
Click on the project itself in the solution explorer and in the properties window it lists the project folder.
Only works if you've actually saved the project though. I.e. newly created projects don't have a location.
Start up Visual Studio and go to Tools->Options.
In the dialog box that opens, make sure to check the box that displays "Show All Settings."
From there, you should find a setting called "Projects and Solutions" which will have the list of default locations for projects, templates, etc.
When you have loaded you project in Visual Studio select the solution in the Solution explorer window and then select Properties window. You will see "Path" in the Properties window which points to the actual file.
Open one of the files in your Solution and hover over the tab in the code window. The full path will show up in a tooltip.
You can also go to Window | Windows... which shows you full path to all open files.
One way is to select the project in the solution explorer and then click File / Save As or press F4 and view the 'Project Folder' property.