qgrep Search Tool for Visual Studio 2019

qgrep Search Tool is a Visual Studio extension and GUI wrapper for qgrep by Arseny Kapoulkine. As an indexing search tool, it's well-suited for large codebases, providing a user-friendly and responsive interface equipped with all the standard search tool features. Additionally, it offers fully customizable color themes for a more personalized user experience.

For the Visual Studio 2022 version, click here

How to set up

1. After installing the extension, the tool window can be opened from View >> qgrep Search Tool. It also comes with a shorcut already assigned (Alt+Shift+F), but if it's already assigned or you want to change it, you can do that from Tools >> Options >> Environment >> Keyboard, the command name is View.qgrepSearchTool.

2. After opening the tool window, you have to set up the folders that will be indexed:

If your projects have a format that can be parsed by MSBuild, you can use the Gather from solution button to automatically grab all the folders and file extensions from the solution.

If you make changes to your files and want the changes to be visible in the search results, you have to reindex manually using the buttons from the lower right corner of the tool window.

Features overview

Search Results

The search results can be shown as list or grouped by file, there is also a contextual menu.

History

The history keeps all of your recent searches but it can also show all of your recently opened files from inside the tool.

Advanced search configurations

You can set up multiple search configurations and toggle between them:

Open file

You can also search for files using unordered keywords, using a different window that can be opened from View >> qgrep Open File or using the shortcut (Alt+Shift+I). You can change this shortcut as well, the command name is View.qgrepSearchFile.

Customize colors

There are three color schemes available: Auto, Dark, and Light. The Auto color scheme grabs the IDE's colors automatically, so you can use any custom theme you want. You also have the option to override any color used in the currently selected color scheme:

Keyboard navigation

You can cycle with the Tab key between the input TextBoxes and the search results. The Down key focuses on the results list. Here is a complete list with all the shortcuts and their default key combination:

• Toggle case sensitive (Alt + C)
• Toggle whole word (Alt + W)
• Toggle regular expressions (Alt + R)
• Toggle include files (Alt + I)
• Toggle exclude files (Alt + E)
• Toggle filter results (Alt + F)
• Toggle group by (Alt + G)
• Toggle group expansion (Alt + X)
• Open history (Alt + H)

You can change these as well, from Tools >> Options >> Environment >> Keyboard, all of the commands are prefixed with qgrep. and make sure to keep the same qgrep Tool Window context so that they only work when the tool window is focused.

Changelog

Version 2.7 (28/05/2023)

• Added an experimental option to update the index automatically that tries its best to optimize index time if only a few files are updated
• The word under the caret is now grabbed automatically when opening the tool window using the command
• Added file icons to any file search (from the dialog or from the "include files" field)
• The file search dialog now automatically selects the best candidate
• Added two options to the file search dialog to customize the path style and to limit the scope of the search
• Added an option to limit the search scope of the "filter results" field
• All resizable windows now remember their size
• Fixed the old search in files from the "include files" field to work as before the new window
• Fixed issue where tree view items collapsed/expanded by the user were modified by a search that was still appending to the results
• Fixed issue with escaped backslashes ("\") in filters that were not being recognized by qgrep as a valid path separator

Version 2.6 (21/05/2023)

• Added a new window to search for files using unordered keywords (Shortcut: Shift+Alt+I)
• The fonts are now grabbed automatically from Visual Studio
• Added options to change the fonts and their size
• Added options to change the results row heights
• Added shortcut for "Group By" (Alt+G)
• Added shortcut for expanding/collapsing the result groups (Alt+X)
• The search errors thrown from qgrep are now shown
• Fixed issues with the config selection combo box
• Moved the windows menu items to the "View" menu

License

qgrep GUI is licensed under the MIT License.

Support

If you encounter a bug or want to suggest a feature, please open an issue in the GitHub repository.

Acknowledgements

This project has benefited from the use of the following open-source projects:

• qgrep: This project is licensed under the MIT License.
• Extended WPF Toolkit™: This project has been used for the color picker and the CheckComboBox. The version used (3.8.2) is licensed under the MS-PL license.
• ControlzEx: This project has been used to replace the standard Windows title bar. It is licensed under the MIT License.

This project also makes use of icons from Visual Studio Code - Icons, which are used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.