If you use Visual Assist, you are probably familiar with its Quick Refactoring Menu—available via a hovering icon or the default shortcut (Shift+Alt+Q). But, you might not appreciate how frequently the menu is available. Quick Action Menu is a more apt name.
Availability aside, the Quick Refactoring Menu is an efficient method of tapping into the features of Visual Assist because the menu contains only pertinent actions; it’s always concise. (If you examine the “Refactor (VA)” submenu of the editor’s context menu, you will find all possible actions. The entries enabled in any one scenario are the ones in the Quick Refactoring Menu.)
Available actions in the Quick Refactoring Menu depend on what Visual Assist thinks you might do and where you are: in whitespace, in a symbol, or with a selection.
Browse the following list of actions that can appear in the Quick Refactoring Menu. Look for unfamiliar actions and envision scenarios in which they make sense. Try a few and add them to your arsenal. If you can’t fathom when or where an action might be available, click through and find an answer in documentation.
| Action | Availability |
|---|---|
| Add Using or #include | from a symbol declared externally |
| Add Member | from a class name |
| Add Similar Member | from a member of a class |
| Change Signature | from an existing signature |
| Create Declaration | from an implementation |
| Create File | from whitespace |
| Create From Usage | from an unknown symbol |
| Create Implementation | from a declaration |
| Create Method Implementations | from a class declaration |
| Document Method | from the name of a method |
| Encapsulate Field | from the declaration of a member |
| Extract Method | with a selection |
| Find Reference | from a symbol |
| Implement Interface / Virtual Methods | from a class name |
| Introduce Variable | with a selection or from whitespace |
| Move Implementation to Source File | from a method defined in a header |
| Move Selection to New File | with a selection |
| Rename | from a symbol |
| Rename File(s) | from whitespace |