VS 2010 Find Symbol Results pane unsorted

Question

When I use the VB IDE right click context menu to "Find All References" in VS 2010, the results in the Find Symbol Results window are listed in apparently random order. In VS 2008, they were at least sorted by file, but I'm finding references in different files scattered throughout the results. Is there any fix for this? If you're looking for references in code you've written, it's a real pain to have to sift through all the references in the form.designer.vb files as well. Any help would be appreciated. A thread on StackOverflow (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3803444/sort-order-of-result-for-find-all-references-in-visual-studio) indicates the results should be ordered by file, but mine are not.

Answer 1

Hi Bo,

Welcome to the MSDN forum.

Based on my test on Visual Studio 2010, the found results should be sorted by file path. Not sure if this is related to some add-ins for VS, I would suggest use "Devenv.exe /SafeMode" to start VS in default environment and try this again. 

Hope this helps.

Best regards,

---

Shanks Zen
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

Answer 2

Hello Shanks,

Thanks you for your welcome and your response. I tried your suggestion but it had no effect. I don't have any addins other than those which came with VS 2010, here's a listing from my Help About window:

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010
Version 10.0.40219.1 SP1Rel
Microsoft .NET Framework
Version 4.0.30319 SP1Rel

Installed Version: Ultimate

Microsoft Office Developer Tools   01019-532-2002102-70564
Microsoft Office Developer Tools

Microsoft Visual Basic 2010   01019-532-2002102-70564
Microsoft Visual Basic 2010

Microsoft Visual C# 2010   01019-532-2002102-70564
Microsoft Visual C# 2010

Microsoft Visual C++ 2010   01019-532-2002102-70564
Microsoft Visual C++ 2010

Microsoft Visual F# 2010   01019-532-2002102-70564
Microsoft Visual F# 2010

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Architecture and Modeling Tools   01019-532-2002102-70564
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Architecture and Modeling Tools
    
UML® and Unified Modeling Language™ are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Object Management Group, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Code Analysis Spell Checker   01019-532-2002102-70564
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Code Analysis Spell Checker

Portions of International CorrectSpell™ spelling correction system © 1993 by Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition Copyright © 1992 Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Team Explorer   01019-532-2002102-70564
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Team Explorer

Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2010   01019-532-2002102-70564
Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2010

Crystal Reports Templates for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010   
Crystal Reports Templates for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - ENU (KB2529927)   KB2529927
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2529927.

Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - ENU (KB2542054)   KB2542054
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2542054.

Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - ENU (KB2548139)   KB2548139
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2548139.

Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - ENU (KB2549864)   KB2549864
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2549864.

Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - ENU (KB2635973)   KB2635973
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2635973.

Hotfix for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - ENU (KB2736182)   KB2736182
This hotfix is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this hotfix will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2736182.

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint Developer Tools   10.0.40219
Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 SharePoint Developer Tools

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - ENU Service Pack 1 (KB983509)   KB983509
This service pack is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this service pack will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/983509.

Security Update for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - ENU (KB2645410)   KB2645410
This security update is for Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate - ENU.
If you later install a more recent service pack, this security update will be uninstalled automatically.
For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2645410.

Here's a screen snip of my Find Symbol Results window:

As you can see, the highlighted reference in from MainDisplay.vb, while the surrounding ones are from MainDisplay.Designer.vb. 

I also tried executing devenv /ResetSettings, and it had no effect. Looking at my Find Symbol Results window snip above, it also seems to me that the line formatting is wrong, it should be file first, reference second, that's the way it was in VS2008 (not that it's sorted even by that!) 

In this article: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/saraford/archive/2008/11/24/did-you-know-you-can-customize-how-search-results-are-displayed-in-the-find-results-window-363.aspx, the author points our a way to format results in the Find Results window, is there anything similar for the Find Symbol Results window?

I appreciate your help!

Regards,

Bo McIlvain

Answer 3

Hi Bo,

Thanks for your reply and sorry for my mistake on my previous reply.

I tried and get the same result as yours on Visual Studio 2008,2010 and 2012. The results were not actually sorted by file path, seems they're sorted by line numbers of the searching object. But why multiple file's result were mixed up, I have no idea then. I'm involving some senior engineers into this thread now.

Best regards,

---

Shanks Zen
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

Answer 4

Hello Zen,

Thanks for escalating this. As a reference to what I referred to in my prior post regarding the format of the display being wrong, here's a screen snip from VS2008:

It's very clear from looking at this that the sort is a simple alpha sort on the whole line, note how Form1.Designer.cs - (129, 50) comes before Form1.Designer.cs - (36, 18). There's no way you could get a sensible sorted result using the result format I showed above in VS2010, and as I noted there, it's not sorted even in that simple way either.

Thanks again for your help...

Regards,

Bo McIlvain

Answer 5

Hi Bo,

For following up with Shanks Zen, I checking it further in our internal database and currently this known issue and currently VS team are tracking it in internal database and it's going to be fixed but still pending.

And also there is no same functionality like Find Results window for the Find Symbol Results window. For product suggestions, I strongly recommend that you submit them through the Microsoft Connect site, then post a link to your suggestion in the appropriate forum. That enables other users to vote for your suggestion. The product teams look for items with strong customer support when making decisions about what features to include in the next release. Connect: http://connect.microsoft.com/visualstudio

 

Best regards,

Christian