CodeSMART 2009 for VB6

[Syahrani10]

1. CodeSMART Integration with The Visual Basic 6 IDE

1.1. General Integration Notes



CodeSMART 2009 for VB6 is exceptionally well integrated within the Visual Basic 6.0 IDE. All the features it adds to Visual Basic are accessible through the main menu (1) and four toolbars (2) it registers with the environment. CodeSMART tools are hosted or display their results within dedicated tool windows (3, and 4) that can be moved or docked. Code view enhancements are displayed directly in the Visual Basic standard code editor window (5). There are many more proofs of the excellent integration CodeSMART has with Visual Basic, like the MDI tabs it adds to the IDE, the tabs added to the Immediate window (which is thus converted into a central reporting place while it does not loose its initial functionality) - these on the visual part, because there is a hidden part too, where everything is magically inserted into Visual Basic's processing chain.



1.2. Tabbed Documents Support



CodeSMART can change the Visual Basic standard multiple document interface (MDI) into a modern "Tabbed MDI" one similar to VS.NET and other modern environments. Advantages include quick navigation between open files, being able to see at a glance what's currently open in the IDE, what was modified (an asterisk is added to dirty files tab caption) and so on.



3.1. The Project Explorer



One of CodeSMART's central pieces is undoubtedly the enhanced Project Explorer, a fully integrated and functional replacement of the standard Visual Basic Project Explorer. It's main design goal: locate code faster than ever. The CodeSMART Project Explorer supports two different view styles:



Physical: where components are displayed grouped in standard folders like in the built-in Project Explorer. Components can be further expanded to show their procedures, variables, event down to code flow items (select-case structures etc).

Logical: where components can be logically grouped in user defined folders to ease the application's functional scheme comprehension. Code expansion is also available like in the above-described view.



In addition to these view styles, the CodeSMART Project Explorer can help you focus on a limited number of components and code elements which represent the current work context. With the Navigation Helper Panes you can use persistent shortcuts to preferred items, a persistent navigation history and also perform node searches in the CodeSMART Project Explorer.



There are three navigation helper panes:



The history pane: tracks down the last visited items, that is: last opened Project Explorer items, double-clicked Immediate window pane results, edited code elements and viewed code items (if configured to do so). Persistent between sessions on a per-project basis.

The node search pane: used to search for nodes in the CodeSMART Project Explorer.

The workbench pane: this one can help you focus on certain elements by defining shortcuts to them. Persistent between sessions on a per-project basis.



So, the CodeSMART Project Explorer can display every piece of information the standard Visual Basic one does, and expand component code in addition. Well, not just that - it supports filtering, searching, navigation history and it can also display:



Regions: this is a CodeSMART feature used in order to group similar or logically-linked procedures inside a component.



Download here

Download PAtch