Version 9: File Browser

It has been quite some time since the last release of Codist.

Now we have a File Browser feature in this release.

This is a new feature that allows you to browse the file structure, where the active document locates, from tiny buttons that reside nearby the zoom control, or from the View/File Explorer menu command. There're at most 5 buttons: Solution projects, solution folder, project folder, current file folder, opened documents, respectively.

Please read the Readme for more details.

• Smart Bar
  • Get rid of change tracking indicator from the result window of Extract Matching Lines command
  • Improve copy content without indentation command to ignore leading empty lines
  • Fix potential crash caused by SmartBar
• Super Quick Info
  • Fix error when displaying C# range variable info
• Refactoring
  • Add a new refactor to split or patterns in switch expression to lines
• Others
  • Don't display build folders unless current project is C# project
  • New tool to export EditorOptions.GlobalOptions to file
  • Change behavior of Copy Symbol Definition command, including XML Doc by default
  • Fix error when performance counter for Resource Monitor feature is unavailable

Version 8.2: Multiline Wrap Text, Match Selection, and more

It has been quite some months since last release.
Codist has not stopped its development since then.

What's new

Now the Wrap Text feature is a standalone one, no longer dependent on Smart Bar.
You can execute it from the Edit menu as well.
The Wrap Text pattern now supports placeholders and multiline, and behaves like the VS Snippet.

Quite some other new notable features are introduced in this release:

1. Match Selection: Highlight parts that matches your selection (or word under caret) on code editor and scrollbar
2. Custom highlight: Allow global configuration (see wiki)
3. C# Symbol Analysis: More commands, more options (on the context menu)
4. New command to create a plain text code window
5. New tools for extension developers (in the Codist Options dialog)

And many bug fixes and user experience improvements. Details in #381.

Version 8.1: Auto Method Punctuations, VS2026 Support

This new version has the following new things:

1. Support VS 2026 (Codist Options window is moved to the Tools menu)
2. New C# refactoring methods
3. Auto append parentheses or bracket pairs when auto-completing C# method or delegate instance names
4. Change behavior of cut and copy operations in Smart Bar, leading white spaces trimmed by default
5. Right click "Copy Symbol" command to copy symbol definition

More improvements and bug fixes can be read in issue #366.

Version 8: C# 13, Custom Syntax Highlight, Markdown Transform

Hi, everybody, it has been quite long time since last release.

C# Programming Improvements

For C# developer, this release has brought you:

1. C# 13 support, and some part of working in progress C# 14, for instance, the Extension Type.
   
2. A heavily refactored Advanced Syntax Highlight component, aiming at better performance and extensibility.
3. URL highlighting feature, which can be used to highlight URL parts within C# strings and XML Doc comments. To make it work, you can set it up via the Custom Codist Syntax Highlight window from the Tools menu.
   
4. The same heavily refactored Super Quick Info component. Some more options are provided in the Options page, check it out and try the new options! My favorite one is the Variable reassignment option which tells you whether a parameter or a local variable is been reassigned after its declaration.
   
5. For the Smart Bar, there is a new command to Extract Lines Containing Selection, which can be access by right clicking the Find button on the Smart Bar. This command works on all code files, not only C# documents.
   

Custom Syntax Highlight

Another notable feature is the Custom Syntax Highlight, which allows you use Regular Expressions to highlight any code, including the Output window pane where compiler output and other stuff is print. For details, please read the Wiki page.

Markdown Transform

This new release has introduced a new Transform Document function for markdown documents, which can be access from the File menu when the active document is markdown.

This function can be used to save a markdown document as HTML, or converts it into XHTML and then transform via XSLT, if an XSL document is provided.

Misc

Many bugs have been fixed in this release. Some minor improvements have also been done, for instance, the performance in this release is improved, so less energy will be consumed.

You can read the discussion of this version in #334 for details.

Version 7.9: Better Markdown & C# 12 Support

What's New

• General
  • Add control to MessageWindow to suppress reoccurring exceptions
  • Fix a crash in SymbolList
  • Fix VS startup slowdown caused by Codist
  • Don't throw exception if command is unavailable
• Syntax Highlight & Quick Info
  • Implement support for new features in C# 12
• Syntax Highlight
  • Support more language types in Comment Tagger
  • Simplify configuration of semantic punctuations and operators
    
  • Tweak C# tagger to highlight more punctuations and operators
  • Fix syntax highlight feature was not properly controlled
  • Fix C# tagger not being enabled after syntax highlight feature was toggled on
  • Exclude identifier from syntax highlighting due to the VS classification type precedency bug
  • Tweak order of type cast keyword in syntax highlight precedency
  • Fix symbol source highlight not working as configuration change
  • Enhanced highlight for Markdown documents
  • Fix broken comment tagger (#328)
• Quick Info
  • Fix some IAsyncQuickInfoSource instances not under feature control
  • Fix Quick Info displaying above SmartBar, SymbolList when Super Quick Info is disabled
  • Fix containing types not properly displayed for nested types
  • Fix interface member implementations in base type list not correctly displayed on C# Quick Info
  • Fix incorrect Quick Info for qualified C# constructors
  • Fix incorrect captured variable info
  • Bring back missing error icons in C# Quick Info for VS 17.10
  • Auto adjust background color if document editor window background inverts
  • Support inner text in <see> and <seealso> elements in C# XML Documentations (#327)
• Smart Bar
  • Fix crash caused by CopySelectionWithoutIndentation when copying text without indentation from SmartBar
  • Add buttons to Markdown SmartBar
• Code Analysis
  • A new analysis command: parameter assignments (see #325)
• Navigation Bar
  • Fix a crash caused by NaviBar
  • Add buttons to MarkdownBar
• Refactoring
  • Add Make Static refactoring
  • Make seal refactoring work on C# records
  • Fix incorrect insertion point in SealClassRefactoring and ChangeAccessibilityRefactoring
• Auto Pair Punctuation
  • Add an option to trim selection before inserting paired punctuation
• Display
  • Add option to hide Copilot button
  • Retry if UI layout override fails on initialization

v7.8

What's new

• General
  • Prevented CSharpSymbolContextMenu commands from crashing VS
  • Fixed potential crash when getting source from implicit constructor
• Syntax Highlight
  • Made Comment Tagger compatible with the new version of VS
  • Addressed some weird problems of syntax highlight
  • Reenabled C# Syntax Highlight in preview text view
  • Fixed potential VS deadlock caused by Comment Tagger
  • Reorganized syntax styles
  • C# local functions capturing local variables would also be highlighted as capturing expressions
• Super Quick Info
  • Fixed a potential crash when advanced Syntax Highlight, NaviBar, etc. features were disabled
  • Improved the display of some C# XML Doc
• NaviBar
  • Added filter buttons to Markdown Navi Bar to filter to specific heading levels
    
• Smart Bar
  • Added Sort Lines, Join Lines to Smart Bar
  • Added Delete Statement, Delete Field and Delete Event refactoring
  • Fixed SmartBar would not show up in some cases

Version 7.7: Syntax highlight improvements

Download

NOTE: The configuration file format is incompatible with previous version, some syntax highlight elements are using different names. Please backup your syntax highlight styles before installing the new beta, in case when you want to rollback to previous version.

What's new

• General
  • 🐞 Fix upgrade dialog got buried under VS main window (#285)
  • ⚙️ Tweak variant palette to include full saturation variance in Color Picker dialog
  • ⚙️ Make Hide Search Box option work against the new All-in-One search button
• Syntax Highlight
  • 🆕 Add new syntax highlight styles for C# nested types and C# variable captured expressions
  • 🆕 Automatically adjust style brightness when switching between bright and dark VS themes (#282)
  • 🆕 An indicator icon for customized syntax styles in customization window (#287)
  • 🐞 Hide syntax irrelevant entries from the customization window (#287)
  • 🐞 Workaround for an issue that breaks semantic highlight on brace and parentheses when punctuation color is specified--by removing the punctuation color specifically
  • 🐞 Fix crash in customization window due to extremely small font size (#293)
  • ⚙️ Remove highlight after switching off advanced highlight (#282)
  • ⚙️ Do not reopen customization window after syntax theme changes
  • ⚙️ Tweak precedence of C# sealed member and private member (#292)
  • ⚙️ Order "all languages" category in customization window by priority from high to low
• Super Quick Info
  • ⚙️ Automatically adjust big icon size in C# Quick Info according to tooltip font size (#276)
  • 🐞 Fix some potential crashes
• Smart Bar
  • ⚙️ Do not show Smart Bar when working with the mini Find and Replace dialog
  • ⚙️ Markdown Smart Bar now by default uses asterisk pairs to mark italic style instead of underscore pairs
  • 🐞 Fix wrap text with Ctrl or Shift key down keeps selecting previously wrapped text

Version 7.6: Better Syntax Highlight Configurator; Auto pair punctuations around selections

This new release has made some improvements to the Syntax Highlight Customization window and the syntax highlight component.
A new color picker is introduced for easier color picking. While you click colors on the dialog, the code editor will be automatically refreshed to reflect the color changes. Previously, we won't see the effects until we click the OK button to close the color picker dialog.

See issue #282 for details.

Another notable feature is the Auto Pair Punctuations function. When we select some code, type the opening punctuation, for instance, (, <, {, [, " or ', their counter part will be inserted at the end of the selection.
This feature is by default turned off, you have to manually turn it on in the Options page.

More details about this release can be read in issue #283.

Version 7.5: Better Super Quick Info

Quite a few improvements for Super Quick Info have been added to version 7.5.

The most notable ones are:

1. Show ordinary comment in symbol declaration (option default: off)
   Now it is possible to view comments for local variables, local functions which are not supported by the XML documentation system.
   
2. New option to delay the display of Quick Info
   
3. Previously the Quick Info can be quite large and placed under the mouse cursor, which sometimes hinders the selection of code. Super Quick info now provides option to limit the size of the Quick Info popup (see screenshot above) so the overflowed content will be scrolled.
4. Super Quick Info now changes the behavior of the popup and makes it out of the way of text selection. When the popup is showing up and there's not enough room below the mouse cursor, the popup will appear on top of the mouse cursor.
5. Quick Info and symbol tooltips now respect settings in Editor Tooltip in the Fonts and Colors options page.

This update also fixed some terrible bugs which crashed or hung VS previously.

More information about this update can be view at #267

Version 7.4: More Information, More Convenient

Notable changes

1. New command in Build Window to open output folders
2. The Code Analysis menu now has tooltips unveiling secret shortcuts
3. Display syntax node range related to the trigger point of C# Quick Info
4. Total line count on scrollbar marker
5. Corrected positioning of markers when scrollbar was in bar mode
6. Namespace symbols on C# Quick Info are now interactive

Details

• General
  • Fixed the display of explicitly implemented indexer names on symbol list
  • Fixed incorrect foreground brush in SymbolFormatter properties
  • Added Open Output Folder commands to Build menu
    
  • Fixed potential deadlock in SymbolList
  • Added a new option to display output window pane after build
  • Displayed assembly directory for assembly symbol on symbol tool tip
  • Improved performance of Color Quick Info, as well as predefined colors on symbol list
  • Prevented Unload event handler from disabling symbol link after clicking on symbol list title
  • Added tool tip to symbol analysis menu commands, unveiling hidden command options
  • Allowed copying fully-qualified symbol name
• Super Quick Info
  • Added a new option to display syntax node range related to the trigger point in C# code editor, so it might help you out of the sea of parentheses
    
  • Addressing an issue working with third party Quick Info extensions
  • Fixed incorrect behavior of Super Quick Info
  • Improved the display of C# explicitly implemented interface members
  • Made namespace symbol on C# Quick Info interactive, displaying namespace and types when clicked
• Advanced Syntax Highlight
  • Added squiggle underline style
    
  • Added highlight style for C# local function declaration
    
  • Fixed priorities of some syntax formats in syntax highlight
• Code Refactoring
  • Fixed incorrect behavior of RemoveContainerRefactoring
• Scrollbar Margins
  • Brought back line number and selection margin for text files
  • Added total line number to LineNumberMargin
    
  • Corrected positioning of markers when scrollbar was in bar mode (shame to have this issue for so long) ^_^!!!
• Smart Bar
  • Fixed <see/> button on C# Smart Bar was not working expectedly with type parameters defined in containing type
  • Fixed C# Smart Bar was not working in Diff window
• Navigation Bar
  • Fixed Go To Definition could sometimes fail in member types on namespace lists
• Extension Development
  • Added more data to Show Active Window Properties command