Any way to get Visual Studio to save the file before running an external tool?

Question

I've have a couple of external tools set up to run Doxygen for me, either on the currently displayed file, or the currently active project.

What's annoying is, there doesn't seem to be an option anywhere to save the file before running the tool.

So I'll hammer in some Doxygen blocks, hit the hotkey to run Doxygen, flip over to Firefox to check the output, and, of course..... it's the previous version.

Sigh.

Any clues on how to get this to work in a nice way?

Answer 1

You could create a VS macro that would save all files first and then your external tools.

Answer 2

I have found a solution to this in VS2013 by using Visual Commander. This gives you back the ability to run macros. You can now create a macro which saves all files and then runs your external tool, eg.

Imports EnvDTE
Imports EnvDTE80
Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic

Public Class C
    Implements VisualCommanderExt.ICommand

    Sub Run(DTE As EnvDTE80.DTE2, package As Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Package) Implements VisualCommanderExt.ICommand.Run
        DTE.ExecuteCommand("File.SaveAll")
        DTE.ExecuteCommand("Tools.ExternalCommand6" )
    End Sub
End Class

This macro can now be added to a tool bar or keyboard shortcut instead of running the external tool directly.