Solution Cleaner for Visual Studio .NET
As a coder...
As a coder, we ofter use tools made by ourselves, and most of the time we forgot
that many people might need something like that, no matter how simple, somebody
might need it. So here is one more of those useful tools coded in csharp with Microsoft
Visual Studio .NET. This tool is totally free.
Why to use this tool?
How many times, when you zipped your code for mailing or for posting on a site (like
this :) ), have you noticed that you zipped PDB, debug files, etc., and that your
little code snippet became 1 MB in size? Well, well, the same happened to me when
coding and sharing code with friends through mail or using forums, so I just coded
this little application; it was for my own use, so it is not too fancy. But I am
sure it will help you to clean up Visual Studio project folders and will save you time. Some
Visual Studio plug-ins like ReSharper generates lots of small files and a bunch of folders inside
your project folders, and you can
delete them with this application. You migth think that not, but you can have 100's of megabytes used on those. You can select what you want to delete and what
not, and since you have the source code (c#), you might
extend this to your needs.
How to use it?
Quite simple, just copy the .exe and run it, you will be able to
integrate it with the Shell by checking the "Register on Shell" menu item in the
Application menu. Then, you can just right click a folder on Windows Explorer and you will
see the "Clean with ..." option. The program will ask you for confirmation
before it starts deleting files. It will also show a preview of the files that will
be deleted and the amount of space on your unit that will be freed, and will mark, in red, files
that could not be deleted (most likely because Microsoft Visual Studio .NET or some other program is using them
and have them locked).
Known problems
Right clicking on a folder in the Windows Explorer treeview and on the Windows Explorer listview
returns different folders, the one in the treeview returns the folder currently
clicked, but clicking on the listview will return the parent folder. So be careful
with this, and if you find out the reason, please!! let me know. Also, registering
this application on the Shell seems to require admin permisions, any workaround?
Please tell. I know this is beause I am writing to the windows registry,
but might be a workaround or something.
Comming soon...
I think people can modify this to delete files created by other plug-ins, but what
I will do now is to zip and mail within this application, so it will be something
like "remove files, zip, and send" with one click.
As a plugin?
Some people have asked me to have this done as a Visual Studio .NET plug-in, well,
as a user mentioned on the codeproject forum for this project, it is not funny/easy/useful
to
open Visual Studio .NET with about 10 project just to use this. It is easier to just
right click on a folder, don't you think? so.. no plug-in version.
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