This Visual Studio extension will automatically find and replace specified text within specified files when a solution is opened.
The intention is to eliminate repetitive manual code modifications that a developer may find neccessary for certain Visual Studio solutions.
With this extension installed Visual Studio will automatically perform a find/replace action on specified file(s) within a specified project upon opening a named solution.
If you like this free extension, please give it a review.
See the change log for road map and release history. Bugs can be logged here.
Example
The following options settings:
For the following solution:
Result in the following outcome when opened:
Who Is This Extension For ?
Any developer using the Visual Studio IDE (any language, any file type) who currently needs to keep repeatedly making the same manual code change(s) to the same file(s) because:
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It is not possible for the change(s) to be persisted indefinately in the developer's source control repository, for any reason
and / or
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It is not possible for the change(s) to be persisted durably in the developer's local file system, for any reason
Use-Cases
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Your source-control system freakishly doesn't retained a file's modifications, and so every time you open a new branch of your solution you need to manually and repeatedly make the same changes to address this. This was the real-life problem I experienced that inspired me to create this extension.
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Every time you open a new branch of your solution you open one or more files and manually and repeatedly comment out particular lines of code (e.g. you change 'debugger;' to '//debugger;').
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You and a colleague or contributor constantly commit changes that revert the other's previous commit. As a result whenever you open the solution you manually and repeatedly edit the same file (e.g. you change 'Author: Joe Public' to 'Author: Jane Doe').
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You have an app.config (or web.config) file, and every time you open a new branch of your solution you need to manually and repeatedly change the connection string from a shared server to localhost, alter a password, change a URL or port number that your app accesses.
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You have a Master Page, and every time you open a new branch of your solution you manually and repeatedly change the page header to contain a phrase such as "Local Work-In-Progress" to aid user interpretation of any screen shots you produce.
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Many more. If you have a use-case you would like listed here, just let me know via a review on the VS Gallery.
Features
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Modifications can be limited to files under source control only. This is the default setting, but can be overridden to allow non-source controlled files to be modified.
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Modified files will not remain open in the IDE Editor by default, but this can be changed to keep files open.
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Define multiple rules for the same file, or for different files in multiple projects / solutions.
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Each rule for finding and replacing text can be enabled or disabled individually, allowing a rule to be temporarily ineffective without having to delete the rule.
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Text searching on a case-insensitive or case-sensitive basis, defined at individual rule level.
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Rules can have free-text comments added, for your own notes as to why you need the rule.
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Each rule has a plain-English auto-generated summary explanation.
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If a solution is opened whose name matches a rule, user is shown a summary of any modifications made. This summary can be surpressed if no modifications were made.
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Incomplete rules (e.g. without a file name) can be specified, and will simply be ignored when specified the solution is opened.
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Rules can be exported (JSON or CSV format) to clipboard, for sharing amongst colleagues or across different PCs.
