Display solution/file path in Visual Studio IDE

Question

I frequently work with multiple instances of Visual Studio, often working on different branches of the same solution.

VC6 used to display the full path of the current source file in its title bar, but Visual Studio 2005 doesn't appear to do this. This makes it slightly more awkward than it should be to work out which branch of the solution I'm currently looking at (the quickest way I know of is to hover over a tab so you get the source file's path as a tooltip).

Is there any way to get the full solution or file path into the title bar, or at least somewhere that's always visible so I can quickly tell which branch is loaded into each instance?

Answer 1

Related note: As an alternative, for Visual Studio 2005 you can use the command File -> Advanced Save Options. The dialog displays the full path of the current file, and you are able to copy the text.

Answer 2

Check out latest release of VSCommands 2010 Lite. It introduced a feature called Friendly Solution Name where you can set it to display solution file path (or any part of it) in Visual Studio main window title. More details: http://vscommands.com/releasenotes/3.6.8.0 and http://vscommands.com/releasenotes/3.6.9.0

Answer 3

It's awkward indeed. Hovering on the tab is indeed one of the few things useful. Alternatives: right click on the file tab : http://weblogs.asp.net/piseth/archive/2008/11/08/find-your-file-path-in-visual-studio.aspx Seems we have to do with that

Answer 4

How to customise the Visual Studio window title

Install the Customize Visual Studio Window Title plugin.

After installing the extension, the settings can be found in the menu.

Tools ► Options ► Customize VS Window Title.

More information

Customize Visual Studio Window Title is a lightweight extension to Visual Studio, which allows you to change the window title to include a folder tree

Features

• A configurable min and max depth distance from the solution/project file
• Allows the use of special tags to help with many other possible scenarios, which include Git, Mercurial and TFS.

Answer 5

As Dan also mentioned it in a comment, the File Path On Footer extension serves the same purpose.

Answer 6

TabsStudio | $49

Is a pretty good (although paid) VS Extension that provides:

• Tab Grouping
• Tab Coloring
• Title Transformation
• Lots of customization & Extension

File Path On Footer | Free

Displays the full file path on the bottom of the editor window

Honorable Mention: Visual Studio Code

VS Code version 1.26 implemented breadcrumbs which displays the file path in a separate row at the top of the editor window when using tabs or inline the file name when in its own window.