Auto select file in Solution Explorer from its open tab - visual-studio

Normally, many files in Visual Studio 2010 are opened in many tabs, while massively working on a project. Many times, I find myself right-clicking on a tab title and searching for Show/Select/Scroll-to this file in Solution Explorer, and I can't find it.
Is there a way to automatically select an opened file in Solution Explorer?


Another option is to bind 'View.TrackActivityInSolutionExplorer' to a keyboard short-cut, which is the same as 'Tools-->Options-->Projects and Solutions-->Track Active Item in Solution Explorer'
If you activate the short-cut twice the file is selected in the solution explorer, and the tracking is disabled again.
Visual Studio 2013+
There is now a feature built in to the VS2013 solution explorer called Sync with Active Document. The icon is two arrows in the solution explorer, and has the hotkey Ctrl + [, S to show the current document in the solution explorer. Does not enable the automatic setting mentioned above, and only happens once.


I don't know if you can do it on-demand, but you can enable the option "Track Active Item in Solution Explorer" (Tools->Options->Projects and Solutions->General) which will always select the active tab item in the solution explorer.


If you're using the ReSharper plugin, you can do that using the Shift + Alt + L shortcut or navigate via menu as shown.


This isn't exactly what you're looking for, but it would automatically select the "active" file in the Solution Explorer:
Tools-->Options-->Projects and Solutions-->Track Active Item in Solution Explorer.


simply Tools--> Options--> Projects and Solutions--> Track Active Item in Solution Explorer


The best option now is to install the Microsoft Visual Studio add on called Productivity Power Tools.
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".


It's in VS2012 - Specifically the 2-Arrow icon at the top of the solution explorer (Left/Right arrows, one above the other). This automatically jumps to the current file.
This icon is only visible if you've got Track Active Item in Solution Explorer disabled.


In Visual Studio 2012, the same can be done using the "Sync With Active Document" option in Solution Explorer


In VS 2019 select Tools > Options and then tick "Track Active Item in Solution Explorer"


The Tab Studio plugin adds "select in solution explorer" to the right click menu on tabs.


I've put in a feature request for this very feature. Although I know this isn't an answer in itself it is a step in the direction of being able to get this feature implemented. Any votes it it may help to get Microsoft's attention.
As far as I'm aware of though there is no way to do this other than possibly writing a macro or creating your own add-in/extension to Visual Studio.


There's a very nice extension to VS2010, which does exactly this: Solution Explorer Tools.
This extension adds a button which selects the current file in the solution explorer, as well as convenient buttons for collapsing and expanding projects.


That's the screenshot of the answer for your question.


In visual studio 2022
Similar to this answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/8473574/13275637
You need to tick Track Active Item in solution Explorer

Related

How can I extend the environment tabs in Visual Studio 2013?

How do you extend Tabs in Visual Studio 2013? It would be handy to extend the Tabs so that you can selectively track an item in Solution Explorer by right clicking on a tab.
By default, Visual Studio will track active items in Solution Explorer via the setting: Tools > Options > Projects and Solutions > General > Track Active Item in Solution Explorer.
Having that turned on makes Solution Explorer jump around, and is consequently confusing on large projects, so I turn it off. But, what I'd like to be able to do, is right click on an open tab, and select a menu item to make Solution Explorer track and display that file's location in Solution Explorer. Basically it would be on-demand selective file tracking.
I know hovering over the tab, you can see the file path and locate it that way. What I would like is a quicker shortcut to displaying the file location in Solution Explorer.
If there is a plugin that already does this, please let me know and provide a link. Otherwise, I'd be interested in knowing how to do this myself. Thanks.

There is a button on the Solution Explorer toolbar Sync with Active Document and the corresponding command SolutionExplorer.SyncWithActiveDocument for keyboard binding.

Code Window does not highlight selected (usually .cs) file in "Solution Explorer"

My Visual Studio has done something really weird.
Usually, when you are in the "edit window" and are changing code, the file you are editing will highlight in "Solution Explorer".
Also, if all projects are "collapsed" in "Solution Explorer", and then there is a file already open (as in, you can see its "tab"), when you click the tab of that file (to be able to edit it), the Solution-Explorer will un-collaspse that project and highlight the file you are editing.
My "Solution-Explorer-Highlight-The-Current-File" function has stopped working.
I can move from tab to tab to tab, and Solution-Explorer doesn't react at all.
I've googled and binged, and I either get 5 billions hits ... or none. The key phrases are too ambiguous I think.
Anybody ever seen this one?
I have VS2010 on the same machine, and it works just fine.
I have one Add-In installed, but it is installed in both VS2010 and VS2012. Thus I don't think it's the culprit.

Smaller hammer.
From the menu: Tools -> Options
From the tree: Projects and Solutions -> General
On the form check: Track Active Item in Solution Explorer

Well.
From here:
How do I truly reset every setting in Visual Studio 2012?
I found this "Big Hammer" command line switch.
/ResetUserData
I used it.
And now it works.
I hate to answer something myself, but just in case somebody hits this in the future.

How to avoid automatically unfolding of projects in Visual Studio 2010 Solution Explorer

I have all the projects in a solution folded, so you can't see their files in the Solution Explorer. And a file belonging to one of those projects open. Once I browse to that file pane, the project containing the file is automatically unfolded in the Solution Explorer.
Is there a way to avoid that automatic unfolding?

I'm not 100% sure what you're after, but in the VS 2010 options, under "Projects and Solutions/General" there is an option called "Track Active Item in Solution Explorer".
I've just tried unchecking that and, with a mutiple project solution all collapsed, when clicking into an open code file it doesn't open up the project in the solution window. Try that and see if it produces the result you're after.
Let me know if I've misunderstood your question though!

Macro to sync active item in Solution Navigator

I don't like the "Track Active Item in Solution Explorer" option in VS, since it seems to slow things down a lot, and can be a bit buggy.
Instead, I'm using the macro shown here (http://weblogs.asp.net/kdente/archive/2008/04/30/locating-the-active-item-in-solution-explorer.aspx) to manually sync the solution explorer using a shortcut key.
Now, I'm switching from using Solution Explorer to the new Solution Navigator that comes with the VS Productivity Pack, and I'm missing this functionality a lot.
Does anyone know if there's anything I can do to manually sync the Solution Navigator to the active item?

Do you need to do this, as the Solution Navigator has an "Open" tab that shows all open files?

Visual Studio 2012 has this built-in using the SolutionExplorer.SyncWithActiveDocument command (default key binding is Ctrl+[, Ctrl+S

How to locate a file in Solution Explorer in Visual Studio 2010?

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

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