12 May 2006

Class Designer PowerToys

Although the PowerToys for the Visual Studio 2005 Class Designer and Distributed System Designers have been around for a while now (last release was December 1, 2005) I have just recently started to use them. There is some very useful functionality built into these PowerToys. Actually, there is surprising amount of functionality built in and I've only started to make use of some of it.

You can download the source code and the installer from the gotdotnet workspace.

Here is a list of features:

Design Tools Enhancements

  • Diagram Search
  • Formatting Commands
  • Floating Property Grid
  • Pan/Zoom Window (a personal favorite)
  • Design Surface Scrolling Improvements
  • Create Comments with Double-Click
  • Design Surface Grid

Class Designer Enhancements

  • Export Diagrams for Web (a personal favorite)
  • Display Xml Comment Command
  • Documentation Tool Window
  • Filtering Appearance
  • Filtering Lines
  • Filtering Members
  • MSDN Help on System Types
  • Fast Navigation
  • Interface Lollipop Labels Commands
  • Inheritance Visualization Commands
  • Show Type Command
  • Association and Inheritance Line Dongles
  • Create Tests Command
  • Type Creation Commands
  • Add Member Commands
  • Synchronization with Code Definition Window
  • View Class Diagram Command Improvements
  • Creating Custom Add-ins