Is there a master index for Visual Studio projects?

Question

I have MANY small "Test Projects" where I put together just enough code to prove or disprove some idea I'm working on. Some time (sometimes several months) later, I need to use some of this code. It can take hours searching through poorly named folders to find the gem of code I'm looking for.

It's not enough to be worth a Blog or wiki entry. I'd just like to have something that includes a description, maybe a screen shot and the zip file of the project (or pointer to version control)

Is there a feature I'm missing in Visual Studio to track projects? Is there a template that can be used to search based on project comments etc?

Has anyone come across something like this?

How long before this question gets closed?

Answer 1

Why not use a version control system (like subversion) for that purpose?

You can put your test projects under version control, and by using a log message you have something you can later search for keywords and check out a project in case you need it again. Once you have put a project under version control, you can remove it from your local disk (so you have less stuff lying around).

Answer 2

Yes, there is such a feature: it's in the "New Project" dialog, and it is called "Name". This will allow you to give your project a meaningful name, that will aid in your finding it later.

There's a related feature, borrowed from the operating system, called "Folders". This allows you to group various projects that are conceptually related, and put them together into a "folder", which you can give a meaningful name related to the conceptual grouping.

The combination of these two will serve all of your needs. The trick is to avoid the mentality which leads to "poorly named folders". Good working habits will save an absurd amount of time in the future, and it really doesn't take that much longer to come up with a meaningful name, rather than TestProject426

Answer 3

If a wiki is really to much hassle, why not search the root of your project folders with something like

findstr /I /S "nifty comment" *.cs

This would just require you to leave a comment with some keywords inside your code.