Getting Started

What is Visual Sidekick

Visual Sidekick is a Visual C++ and Visual Studio add-in that adds advanced new features to the standard IDE that will improve your productivity.

Visual Sidekick adds three new visual items to the Visual Studio development environment:

a Visual Sidekick floating/dockable Toolwindow
a Visual Sidekick floating/dockable Toolbar
a high-level menu item (VSK)

When a solution is opened or created in Visual Studio, Visual Sidekick will immediately parse all files and symbols in the solution. When a solution is closed, Visual Sidekick will clear itself.

The Visual Sidekick Floating/Dockable Toolwindow

The Visual Sidekick user interface consists of a Browse Toolbar, a Primary Filter, a Secondary Filter, a Browse Tree and an Information Panel.

The Browse Toolbar contains selection buttons to control the state of the Toolwindow.
The Primary Filter is used to dynamically search for any primary symbol (e.g. class, function, etc) in the current view.
The Secondary Filter is used to dynamically search for any secondary symbol (e.g. method in a class) in the current view.
The Browse Tree displays solution symbols (source code symbols, solution files, solution folders, etc) arranged in blocks of different symbol types.
The Information Panel displays extra details for the currently selected Browse Tree object.

The Visual Sidekick Toolbar and Menu

Visual Sidekick adds a floating toolbar to the Visual C++ and Visual Studio development environments. The toolbar provides Visual Sidekick functionality in the Visual Studio editor window.

In Visual Studio .NET, Visual Sidekick adds a new "VSK" menu to the main menu bar immediately after the Tools menu. In Visual C++ 5/6, Visual Sidekick adds a new "VSK" menu inside the VSK toolwindow.

IDE VSK Menu in the IDE Floating Toolbar

Visual C++ 5/6

Visual Studio 2002/2003

Visual Studio 2005

Simple Navigation

Below are some common keybindings to navigate between Visual Studio and Visual Sidekick:

To search for symbols in the Solution, use Ctrl-Q (instead of Ctrl+Shift+F for Find in Files) .
To search for symbols in the Local File, use Ctrl+Shift+L (instead of Ctrl+F or Ctrl+I for Find and Incremental Find).
To move to the Browse Tree, use Alt-Q.
To move from Visual Sidekick back to Visual Studio use ESC.

Below are some common keybindings to navigate within the Visual Sidekick Toolwindow:

Use TAB or Shift-TAB to cycle between the Filter Boxes and the Browse Tree.
Use Down-Arrow and Up-Arrow to move directly between the Filter Boxes and the Browse Tree.

Below are some common keybindings to navigate within the Visual Studio editor:

Use Ctrl-Enter to flip between header and source.
Use Ctrl-Shift-Enter to flip between the current method's specification and its body.