Is there an add-in for VS2008 to manage favourite solutions/projects?

Question

The "Recent Projects" section on the startup page in VS2008 feels pretty useless to me.

I'm used to checking out multiple repositories to work on different features. Our repository structure is pretty deep. The File->"Recent Projects" menu does not show enough of the path for me to figure out which project it is going to open. The closest I can get is hovering over projects in the "Recent Projects" section on the startup page, because then I can read the whole path in the statusbar. Still I tend to opening projects frequently to test different ideas, but in general I only work on a few projects.

I think it would be great to have a "Favourite projects" section instead of a "Recent Projects" with entries I could name myself.

Does anyone know of such an add-in for VS2008?

Answer 1

Please check:

Favorites Menu for Visual Studio (For Files Only)

In case you are not able to find it online I can host it for you if you need it.

Download Link.

Alternatively you can use the MRU Cleaner addin to periodically clear the resent list

Answer 2

MZ-Tools has a feature that's pretty close to what you describe.

The details of the Favorite Solutions feature can be found under the Features to enhance your Visual Studio experience heading.

This feature is intended to replace the Recent Projects or Start Page features of Visual Studio, which have some flaws: a recent project is not always a favorite project...

Although this tool is NOT free, it does offer the feature you are looking for. You can try it out for 30 days.

Answer 3

Why don't you just make shortcuts to .sln file and put them in your desktop or Quick launch bar? then just one click and you can open your project and wait for VS2010 which will have the favorite projects feature. Actually our repostitory structure is also very deep and I also want this feature but couldn't figure out. I changed the number of items recent project displays from 4 to 10 using tools -> options. This displays almost all my projects I am currently working on.