General Release Build 2023.1 (2476)

Requires maintenance through 2023.01.19

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NEW C++: Improved parser auto type deduction for pointers.
NEW C#: Improved parser support for C# tuple deconstruction.
NEW C++: Add parser support for C++ 17's structured binding from a constructor.
NEW Added support for custom shader file extensions.
NEW Improved code formatting when pasting Unreal Engine source code.
NEW Added UI to Find References results to repeat a search for the entire solution.
NEW C++: Code inspections for bugprone-inaccurate-erase and bugprone-bool-pointer-implicit-conversion.

VA 2023.1 is an extensive update bringing a wide range of improvements for a variety of functions—useful for all types of developers. Many of the updates included are a result of your continuous feedback and bug reports, so keep ‘em coming!

READ: Announcement blog (with screenshots).



First in our list of updates are a number of parser improvements.

  • Auto type deduction comprehension has been improved. This is especially apparent when using pointers that also reference other pointers.
  • In C#, the parser now recognizes multiple variables from a struct (tuple deconstruction)—allowing all VA’s features to work properly.
  • Similarly, the parser now recognizes a lookalike case when auto assigning multiple variables from a constructor (ie. C++17’s structured binding).

Next up, Visual Assist showcases continued improvements to shader files support, which we released a few months back. You can now instruct VA to read custom file types as shader files by specifying the file extension in a dialog.

This release also has an Unreal Engine-specific tweak. Similar to how VA removes automatic indentation when entering a new line, copy and pasting sections of Unreal code will also ignore those indents. This is something our Unreal customers will likely really love - a definite quality of life improvement within Visual Studio.

And a PSA for those who have found that results shown by find references seem to be incomplete sometimes: you have to specify the scope of the search (ie. just the open project or the entire solution). This release adds a new UI notification to make it more apparent.

If you want to learn more about the benefits that these updates provide, head on over to our blog post.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed issue where icons may be missing in Visual Studio 2022.
  • Fixed issue where folders / JSON files may be unnecessarily created when hovering the mouse cursor over symbols.
  • Fixed convert suggestion listbox keyboard shortcut display to update when the shortcut is changed.Please adapt the copy to whatever font, font size, and formatting we use for the previous posts.

General Release Build 2022.4 (2463)

Requires maintenance through 2022.10.25

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NEW Added support for C++17's structured binding declarations.
NEW Added coloring support for several HLSL types.
NEW Added a checkbox to honor excluded items settings defined in ".vscode\settings.json" when opening a folder.
NEW Added Code Inspection for bugprone-string-integer-assignment clang checker.

This release is centered around improvements to Visual Assist’s parser. The parser has been updated to recognize more modern C++ code. New features are introduced into C++ roughly once every three years and this change will keep Visual Assist on pace with the ever changing industry standards.

Visual Assist

VA now recognizes structured bindings introduced in C++17.

We’ve also added an option to honor VSCode settings when initializing projects. This comes at the request of some of our users who wished to keep parsing focused on relevant code, particularly when working in very large Cmake projects.

Apart from those, work on HLSL support from the last update has been continued, as well as a new code inspection check.

If you want to learn more about the changes in this release, head on over to the announcement blog post.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue where parser could become confused when using std::get and std::tuple.
  • Fixed an issue in C# where the parser did not understand parameter declared with "out int".
  • Fixed an issue where comments could be duplicated in tooltips.
  • Fixed an issue where VA's tooltips would not appear if IntelliSense was disabled.
  • Fixed an issue where the parser could become confused with case'1' inside a switch statement.
  • Fixed an issue where the VA Outline tooltip spread across two monitors with different DPI settings could cause hang.
  • Fixed an issue where the tomato icon may become black on hover in VS 2022.
  • Fixed an issue where a class method name that begins with "using" is missing from MIF.

Keep the reports coming. Send us a message or start a thread on the user forums for bug reports or suggestions.


General Release Build 2022.3 (2458)

Requires maintenance through 2022.07.29

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NEW HLSL shader files are now supported. This feature is in beta in this release. (USH and USF in Unreal)
NEW Added Code Inspection for cppcoreguidelines-pro-type-member-init clang checker
NEW Added Code Inspection for readability-string-compare clang checker
NEW Allow forward slashes (Linux style) to be used in Open File in Solution directory filters

The pièce de résistance of this release is the introduction of support for HLSL shader files. While in beta, you can now use common Visual Assist features for HLSL projects.

Visual Assist

Shader file functions are disabled by default. To enable it, go to Visual Assist Options -> Game Development -> Enable support for shader files.

Visual Assist’s library of code inspections also gets two new checkers. The first check involves flagging construction definitions with incomplete initialized fields. While the second checks for a common mistake when using the compare method, a sort function, to compare strings.

This release also adds Linux-style shorthand to Open File in Solution which adds a filter for files contained in a certain directory. For example, "\TestContent" filters all files not contained in a directory starting with "TestContent". "/TestContent" to be a directory filter now too.

Bug Fixes

  • Fix for Unreal Engine core redirect being offered on types with no markup
  • The Unreal Engine core redirect checkbox in dialogs will always be unchecked on dialog open, instead of remembering last state
  • Fix for issue where Modify Expression would be inconsistently offered in whitespace
  • Fix for issue that could cause some icons to not load
  • Fix for incorrect OS version reported in Windows 11
  • Fix for poor contrast in Create File dialog edit control
  • Fix for issue where Insert Path dialog radio button text would sometimes be cut off

Keep the reports coming. Send us a message or start a thread on the user forums for bug reports or suggestions.