Finally, I can speak about my two months of blogging absence. ;-)

Right in the middle of my work on the SonicLauncher, I heard of the Extensibility Contest on devx.com (May 2006). I set my blogging and nearly all my private activities to zero (as some of you may have noticed) and started working on a tool named SonicFileFinder.

After carrying the idea around for quite a long time, I am proud to announce that the first public version of SonicFileFinder 1.0 is finally released. It has also been submitted as an entry to the contest I mentioned earlier.

What is SonicFileFinder?

SonicFileFinder is a free add-in for Visual Studio 2005 that allows a fast and convenient search for any file within every Project of the loaded Solution by entering the complete filename or just a part of it. The found file(s) can either be edited with a single keystroke or a Windows Explorer can be opened at the file's location.

Overview

The main functionality of SonicFileFinder consists of finding files by name within every Project of the current Solution. To do that simply enter a filename or a part of a filename into the search box. The list of files will automatically be updated to match the search term. To edit a found file simply select the file in the result list and press either Enter or Doubleclick it with your mouse.

Main Features

Display modes

SonicFileFinder is able to run in two different display modes:

• As a popup window
• As a dockable tool window

Popup window mode:

Tool window mode:

Best match

By sorting the Match column in descending order, you see the best matching result on top of the result list (see Screenshot above).

Shortened Paths

To keep the file paths shown in the Path column short, the common base path of all files is determined, extracted from the original paths and shown in the column header.

Search Behaviour

SonicFileFinder can find files where filenames contain (default) or start with the entered text.

Keyboard Commands

SonicFileFinder is completely keyboard controllable.

Explore

By pressing the Explore Button, Windows Explorer will be opened at the location of the selected file.

Live preview

When navigating through the result list using the Cursor Up/Down keys with Use live preview enabled, the selected file will be automatically loaded into the editor.

Where can I get it?

You can download SonicFileFinder 1.0 from SonicFileFinder homepage (http://sonicfilefinder.jens-schaller.de). Future releases will be announced there and in this blog.