[VB6 Add-In] Project Examiner

[Eduardo-]

This Add-In is mainly intended for large projects, maybe old or inherited projects that you need to renew or rework, and you have to find what it has and where.

It deals with design time issues, not with source code. For source code I suggest LaVolpe's Project Scanner.

How to start with it:

Download the source code of the Add-In, compile it with an elevated IDE and close the IDE.

Then open the IDE again with the project you want to work on.
Go to the Add-Ins menu and select Project Examiner.

Here there are some screen shots:







There are several tabs. Their functions are:

Scan:
Performs the scan of the project to find what it has.
This must be done before anything else.

Dependencies:
Shows what control types the program uses and where they are.
There are two option buttons at the bottom to select to view them grouped by dependency or by form.

Strings:
Shows what controls and which properties has strings stored at design time.
This can be useful if you are translating a program and need to find where are the design-time strings that need translation.

Fonts:
This tab shows the fonts that the program uses and where.
There are two option buttons at the bottom to select to view them grouped by font or by form.

Find controls:
Find the controls that meet certain criteria. The condition is the value of a property ("=", "<>" ">", etc.).
If works with numeric values and also with strings.

Replace fonts:
There you can select what font to replace and with which one.

Copy controls:
Copy a control that is on a form to all the others (and/or to usercontrols) or some of them.


Notes:

• Image handling seems not to be supported by the Add-in environment.
• Make a backup copy of your project before doing anything (if you don't already have one), that is a good practice.

Changelog:

2021-11-28 some improvements made.
2021-01-27 fixed bug in the font replacement utility
2021-01-27 fixed bug that happened when compiled
2021-01-27 added better support for running on project groups
2021-01-26 bug fix at the 'Find controls' tab, now it allows to compare to empty strings ("")
2021-01-19 added more options the the 'Find controls' tab
2021-01-18 added some fixes for running at non-integer TwipsPerPixels DPI settings.
2021-01-17 bug fix: in some situations VBComponent.Reload raised an error. 
2020-10-04
      The Copy to Clipboard feature now adds tab characters instead of spaces to facilitate pasting to Excel.
      Some forms can be flagged unsaved (or changed) just opening them (without making any changes to them). It can be due to an UserControl or third party control. The Add-in opens all the forms, and in the previous version these forms were flagged as unsaved. Now that is fixed in this version, all forms remain in their original "saved/unsaved" state.
      Designer windows remain in their original state (not closed if they were already open).
2020-10-04
      The compare criteria in the Find tab now ignored the "&" symbol (that can be common on Captions to set the accelerator key)
      FontName properties not added to the String list anymore.
      Out of memory bug fixed. The designer windows were opened -but not set visible- in the scan and not closed after that, causing an out of memory error on very large projects.
2020-10-03: First version

Download from GitHub.