Organize Usings Across Your Entire Solution
One of the features I worked on for the Visual Studio 2008 release was the new "Organize Usings" feature. This feature allows you to:
- Remove Unused Usings - Determines which using directives are not used in the current file and deletes them.
- Sort Usings - Sorts the using directives in a file
We've received a great response from customers on the usefulness of this feature but one of the questions that I've received quite often is - "is there a way to make the feature work on an entire project or solution"? The current answer to this is no. Given the number of times I've heard the request though, I thought it would be worth posting a workaround that uses macros.
So here's what you need to do - it's really quite simple:
Step 1: Create a new macro in Visual Studio through the Tools | Macros menu.
Step 2: Paste the code below into the Module and save it
Note that the code below is courtesy of Kevin Pilch-Bisson ( https://blogs.msdn.com/kevinpilchbisson/archive/2004/05/17/133371.aspx ) and Chris Eargle ( https://www.chriseargle.com/post/Format-Solution.aspx ), who have posted macros that allow you to format across an entire solution. I'm simply re-applying their approach to invoke the RemoveAndSort command rather than the FormatDocument command. Note that I haven't tested this macro extensively so please use at your own risk.
Public Module Module1
Sub OrganizeSolution()
Dim sol As Solution = DTE.Solution
For i As Integer = 1 To sol.Projects.Count
OrganizeProject(sol.Projects.Item(i))
Next
End Sub
Private Sub OrganizeProject(ByVal proj As Project)
For i As Integer = 1 To proj.ProjectItems.Count
OrganizeProjectItem(proj.ProjectItems.Item(i))
Next
End Sub
Private Sub OrganizeProjectItem(ByVal projectItem As ProjectItem)
Dim fileIsOpen As Boolean = False
If projectItem.Kind = Constants.vsProjectItemKindPhysicalFile Then
'If this is a c# file
If projectItem.Name.LastIndexOf(".cs") = projectItem.Name.Length - 3 Then
'Set flag to true if file is already open
fileIsOpen = projectItem.IsOpen
Dim window As Window = projectItem.Open(Constants.vsViewKindCode)
window.Activate()
projectItem.Document.DTE.ExecuteCommand("Edit.RemoveAndSort")
'Only close the file if it was not already open
If Not fileIsOpen Then
window.Close(vsSaveChanges.vsSaveChangesYes)
End If
End If
End If
'Be sure to apply RemoveAndSort on all of the ProjectItems.
If Not projectItem.ProjectItems Is Nothing Then
For i As Integer = 1 To projectItem.ProjectItems.Count
OrganizeProjectItem(projectItem.ProjectItems.Item(i))
Next
End If
'Apply RemoveAndSort on a SubProject if it exists.
If Not projectItem.SubProject Is Nothing Then
OrganizeProject(projectItem.SubProject)
End If
End Sub
End Module
Step 3: Run the macro on any solution that you'd like and there you have it! Enjoy :)
Comments
Anonymous
August 15, 2008
PingBack from http://www.easycoded.com/organize-usings-across-your-entire-solutionAnonymous
August 15, 2008
You've been kicked (a good thing) - Trackback from DotNetKicks.comAnonymous
August 16, 2008
This is also available in the VS 2008 Power Commands addin, http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/PowerCommands But that's cool to see how easy it is implement with the use of a macro. Anyway, I didn't know you were the guy you worked on it. Really awesome feature DJ!Anonymous
August 18, 2008
This looks great! However, when I try to run it on one of my larger solutions, it works for a while and then eventually fails with the error: The message filter indicated that the application is busy. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8001010A (RPC_SERVERCALL_RETRYLATER)) Any ideas how to get this to work with larger solutions?Anonymous
August 19, 2008
Excellent, great for tidying up after I've tried 10 different ways to solve a problem ...Anonymous
August 19, 2008
Works a charm in a test solution. Will test it on a large solution soon.Anonymous
August 19, 2008
Applied for a large solution. Great work done. Thanks.Anonymous
August 20, 2008
Also got an error when running it on a large project: System call failed. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80010100 (RPC_E_SYS_CALL_FAILED))Anonymous
August 20, 2008
I'm current doing a code review and cleanup so I will try this as part of that effort. To be honest, to this point I had completely ignored the "Organize Usings" menu item. To bad for me; it's really handy! I don't like unused code of any kind, so this is the kind of simple feature that gets me through a project with a lot less stress. -NeilAnonymous
August 20, 2008
Is there a way in VS.NET to order the fields and properties and methods automatically? and put them into #region blocks? or have a macro of some tool? Know of any?Anonymous
August 21, 2008
A short while ago I wrote an add-in for the same purpose that you can find here: http://nayyeri.net/blog/simpler-code-add-in-for-visual-studio-2008/Anonymous
August 24, 2008
Links of the Week #50 (week 34/2008)Anonymous
August 24, 2008
Development Clone Detective for Visual Studio - "Clone Detective is a Visual Studio integrationAnonymous
August 25, 2008
Organize Usings Across Your Entire SolutionAnonymous
September 02, 2008
My latest in a series of the weekly, or more often, summary of interesting links I come across related to Visual Studio. Sara Ford's Tip of the Day #303 covers the QuickWatch window . Carlos Quintero posted The diagram of the convoluted build configurationAnonymous
September 03, 2008
It would be cool if there was an a capability of removing any unnecessary references too.Anonymous
September 08, 2008
Cool! Probably not what you want to hear, but (third party) tools like ReSharper can do this also, as wel as removing unused references. Maybe you can look at some of its features while developing a new version of VS?Anonymous
September 09, 2008
Has anyone heard about a product named R#?Anonymous
September 09, 2008
Why i can't read .aspx source code if it has .cs file? Hi, i have a problem about reading .aspx file. If projectItem ends with .aspx and it has .aspx.cs when my .aspx window is active it reads the .cs code that it has. But if my item hasn't a .cs file it has only .aspx file it reads the source code of aspx it works correctly.How Can I solve this problem? Here is my code : Private Sub ReadCodeFile(ByVal projectItem As EnvDTE.ProjectItem) ' Read file Content Dim codeWindow As Window = projectItem.Open(Constants.vsViewKindCode) codeWindow.Activate() 'Load text into text buffer Dim objTextDoc As EnvDTE.TextDocument = codeWindow.Document.Object() 'Manipulate text as data in text buffers Dim objEditPt As EditPoint = objTextDoc.StartPoint.CreateEditPoint() 'Move the object to the beginning of the document objEditPt.StartOfDocument() 'Returns the text between the current location and the specified location in the buffer content = objEditPt.GetText(objTextDoc.EndPoint) codeWindow.Close(vsSaveChanges.vsSaveChangesNo) End Sub please alert me by my email burcu_hamamcioglu@hotmail.comAnonymous
September 10, 2008
The functionalitity to remove redundant usings in the entire solution is part of the ReSharper add on for a long time.Anonymous
January 17, 2009
The comment has been removedAnonymous
February 03, 2009
Awesome macro, but it halts when it encounters a C# source file with a "Build Action" set to None. This is because the Intellisense > Organize Usings menu is not available for files with BuildAction=None. I've Googled for a solution but couldn't find a way to poll the projectItem for BuildAction. Any ideas? Thanks.Anonymous
May 31, 2010
I've been trying for a while make this work on VS2010. Have you tried it? It opens the document, closes but the actual DTE.ExecuteCommand doesn't work. Tried also with DTE.ExecuteCommand("Edit.RemoveUnusedUsings").