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๐Ÿ› ๏ธ Visual Studio Toolbox

Your Visual Studio installations, beautifully organized โœจ

.NET WinUI 3 Windows License


๐ŸŽฏ What is Visual Studio Toolbox?

Visual Studio Toolbox is a sleek system tray application for Windows that helps you manage all your Visual Studio installations in one place. Think of it as your personal command center for Visual Studio! ๐Ÿš€

๐Ÿ’ก Inspired by JetBrains Toolbox - bringing the same convenience to the Visual Studio ecosystem!


โœจ Features

Feature Description
๐Ÿ” Auto-Detection Automatically discovers all VS 2019, 2022, and 2026 installations
๐ŸŽจ Beautiful UI Modern WinUI 3 interface with light/dark mode support
๐Ÿš€ Quick Launch Launch any VS instance with a single click
๐Ÿงช Experimental Hives See and launch experimental/custom VS hives
๐Ÿ’ป Developer Shells Launch VS Developer Command Prompt or PowerShell
๐Ÿ“ Quick Access Open installation folders and AppData directories
๐Ÿ–ฅ๏ธ Windows Terminal Integrates with your Windows Terminal profiles
๐Ÿ“Œ System Tray Lives quietly in your system tray until needed

๐Ÿ“ธ Screenshots

Instance List

See all your Visual Studio installations at a glance, including version info, build numbers, and preview badges:

Instance List

Quick Actions Menu

Access powerful options for each installation - open folders, launch dev shells, and more:

Instance Menu


๐Ÿš€ Getting Started

Prerequisites

Build & Run

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/CalvinAllen/VSToolbox.git

# Navigate to the project
cd VSToolbox

# Build and run
dotnet run --project src/CodingWithCalvin.VSToolbox

๐ŸŽฎ Usage

๐Ÿ–ฑ๏ธ Main Window

  • Click the โ–ถ๏ธ play button to launch Visual Studio
  • Click the โš™๏ธ gear button for more options:
    • ๐Ÿ“‚ Open Explorer - Open the VS installation folder
    • ๐Ÿ’ป VS CMD Prompt - Launch Developer Command Prompt
    • ๐Ÿš VS PowerShell - Launch Developer PowerShell
    • ๐Ÿ“ Open Local AppData - Access VS settings and extensions

๐Ÿ“Œ System Tray

  • Click the tray icon to show/hide the window
  • Right-click for quick menu (Show / Exit)
  • X button minimizes to tray instead of closing

๐Ÿ—๏ธ Architecture

VSToolbox/
โ”œโ”€โ”€ ๐Ÿ“ src/
โ”‚   โ”œโ”€โ”€ ๐Ÿ“ CodingWithCalvin.VSToolbox/        # ๐ŸŽจ WinUI 3 Application
โ”‚   โ”‚   โ”œโ”€โ”€ ๐Ÿ“ Views/                         # XAML pages
โ”‚   โ”‚   โ”œโ”€โ”€ ๐Ÿ“ ViewModels/                    # MVVM view models
โ”‚   โ”‚   โ””โ”€โ”€ ๐Ÿ“ Services/                      # App services
โ”‚   โ”‚
โ”‚   โ””โ”€โ”€ ๐Ÿ“ CodingWithCalvin.VSToolbox.Core/   # ๐Ÿ“ฆ Core Library
โ”‚       โ”œโ”€โ”€ ๐Ÿ“ Models/                        # Data models
โ”‚       โ””โ”€โ”€ ๐Ÿ“ Services/                      # VS detection & launch
โ”‚
โ””โ”€โ”€ ๐Ÿ“ tests/                                 # ๐Ÿงช Unit tests

๐Ÿ› ๏ธ Tech Stack

Technology Purpose
๐Ÿ’œ C# 13 Language
๐ŸŽฏ .NET 10 Runtime
๐ŸŽจ WinUI 3 UI Framework
๐Ÿ“ฆ Windows App SDK 1.8 Windows APIs
๐Ÿ”” H.NotifyIcon.WinUI System tray
๐Ÿงฐ CommunityToolkit.Mvvm MVVM pattern

๐Ÿค Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to:

  1. ๐Ÿด Fork the repository
  2. ๐ŸŒฟ Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
  3. ๐Ÿ’พ Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
  4. ๐Ÿ“ค Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
  5. ๐ŸŽ‰ Open a Pull Request

๐Ÿ‘ฅ Contributors

CalvinAllen timheuer


๐Ÿ“„ License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.


๐Ÿ’– Acknowledgments

  • ๐Ÿ™ Microsoft for Visual Studio and WinUI
  • ๐Ÿ’ก JetBrains Toolbox for the inspiration
  • ๐ŸŽจ The .NET community for amazing libraries

Made with ๐Ÿ’œ by Coding with Calvin

โญ Star this repo if you find it useful! โญ

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Visual Studio Toolbox is a sleek system tray application for Windows that helps you manage all your Visual Studio installations in one place. Think of it as your personal command center for Visual Studio

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