Visual Assist by Whole Tomato: Filling Gaps in Visual Studio for C/C++ and C# Developers

Visual Assist is a productivity extension for Visual Studio development work. It provides a set of intelligent refactoring, navigation, code highlighting and generation features for C, C++, and C# development. With its highly-efficient memory management and minimal UI, Visual Assist gives developers uninterrupted access to advanced features without slowing down the IDE.

Visual Assist is one of the definitive plugins that conceptualized and shaped most of the current features you see now in Visual Studio. And to this day it continues to develop user-centric design for maximum productivity and usability.

What's new

If you’re ready to move to Visual Studio 2022, so are we! We are seeing great performance gains and are excited to see this grow.

Visual Assist has full support for Visual Studio 2022. To enjoy the benefits of the latest release, you can download the latest version here.

· Unreal Engine 5 support

Unreal Engine 5 is fully supported by Visual Assist. Leverage UE-specific features to navigate, maintain, and refactor huge Unreal Engine solutions.

· Improved parser behavior and performance

Numerous upgrades have been incorporated into Visual Assist’s core comprehension engine for faster and smarter actions—updated for the latest C++ standards.

· HLSL support

Features such as navigation, syntax highlighting and coloring support, now works in HLSL, and Unreal’s USH and USF files.

· New code Inspection checks and code inspection engine

Modernize and fix code issues en masse with 6 new code inspection clang checks. See full list of code inspections. VA is also running LLVM/Clang version 13 engine.

· Revamped look for VS 2022

Same reliable performance with a refreshing new look for Visual Studio 2022

Productivity tool for C/C++ and C# with support for UE4 & UE5

Visual Assist fills gaps in the coding experience of Microsoft Visual Studio, making a great IDE a phenomenal IDE.

Sample Features by Category

· Unreal Engine Specific Tooling

Make your games epic with integrated Unreal Engine support (including UE5) and new features that run as fast as your code. Save time, see more and work smarter.

· Navigation

Move about your code efficiently and easily—to any file, method, symbol, or symbol reference in your projects and solutions. Navigate with commands like Find Symbol in Solution, Open File in Solution, an upgraded version of Find References, and Goto Related.

Go to related locations of any symbol, including base classes, derived classes, constructors, and members.

Navigate throughout a solution via VA Hashtags in comments. VA Hashtags are user-defined, shared bookmarks that move with code. You can also use the feature also as a task list.

Navigate among VA Hashtags using a dedicated tool window or local context menu.

· Refactoring

Reduce the complexity of your code, improve its readability, and make it extensible without changing its external behavior. Refactor with commands like Rename, Encapsulate Field, Introduce Variable, and Change Signature.

Use Change Signature to add, remove and reorder parameters in definitions and call sites.

· Code Generation

Generate code quickly with commands like Add Missing Case Statements, Implement Interface / Virtual Methods, and Create from Usage.

Create methods, variables, and enums without leaving your place in code.

· Coding Assistance

Write code with assistance that doesn't get in your way. Select using enhanced member listboxes, surround selections with code snippets, quickly grow selections on logical boundaries, and accept suggestions that appear before you type.

Suggestions include relevant bits of nearby code.

· Code Understanding

Make sense of complex or unfamiliar code with an assortment of informative fields, highlights that update as you move about code, and enhanced syntax coloring.

VA provides timely and contextual hints with tool windows, browsers, and fields. Get information more often, and with more thorough content to help you make sense of code.

· Debug Assistance

Use debugger enhancements in Visual Assist to shorten the time required to debug native C/C++. Browse PDBs efficiently; resolve symbols in text-only call stacks; and use the VA Step Filter to step over trusted methods in argument lists.

· Tool Windows

Access tool windows for a hierarchy of header files, list of recently visited places, and an outline of the current file that allows drag-and-drop to rearrange its contents.

· VA Code Snippets

Expand frequently typed segments of code with a more powerful version of the like-named feature in the IDE. Expand symbols from the current context, prompt for user input, and edit VA Snippets in a custom editor.

· Code Correction

Correct typing mistakes as you make them, including incorrect symbol case, invalid pointer notation, and spelling errors in strings and comments.

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