Add Eclipse’s Open Resource to Visual Studio 2010

One of my favorite features of the Eclipse IDE is ‘Open Resource’ ( Ctrl + Shift + R  ).

Don't point and click to your files, just type their name

If you’re unfamiliar with this, it’s a File Open dialog that let’s you type the name of the file you’re looking for, instead of requiring you to point and click your way to the file. This is one of the few features I still can’t believe Visual Studio doesn’t have built in. Now I’ve had other MS experts show me similar “quick find” features of Visual Studio, but it’s still not as easy as Ctrl+Shift+R > type the filename.

When I was using Visual Studio 2008 I came across the Sonic File Finder plugin and I was hooked.  Then I upgraded to Visual Studio 2010 and my plugin went away.  Today I solved my quick open plugin issue by browsing the Visual Studio Gallery and installing Quick Open File.  This quick open plugin does exactly what Eclipse’ Open Resource does, and it’s a good bit simpler than Sonic File Finder.  Now that I’ve got the plugin installed, the next step is to configure Visual Studio to open this plugin when I hit the Ctrl + Shirt + R keyboard combination.

Add Ctrl+Shift+R to Visual Studio

1. Fire up Visual Studio
2. Click Tools > Options > Environment > Keyboard
3. You should now be at the window for assigning keyboard shortcuts

   

4. Type “Quick” into the Show commands containing box
5. Click inside the “Press shortcut keys” box, and then press Ctrl + Shift + R on your keyboard
6. Assuming you’ve set this to Global, you are now good to go.

**NOTE : When assigning a keyboard shortcut in Visual Studio, you want to make sure your new shortcut isn’t already assigned to a different command.  If this is the case, you should remove your shortcut assignment from the other command before assigning to your new command.  This dialog will show you what is already assigned to a keyboard combination like so.

Assuming you made it this far, pressing Ctrl + Shift + R in Visual Studio should now show you this Quick File Open dialog.

There you go, quick open in Eclipse and Visual Studio!