Comment Reflower for Visual Studio 2008

Comment Reflower is an essential add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio that provides configurable automatic reformatting of block comments, including XML comments. The program was originally created by Ian Nowland for Visual Studio 2003 and 2005. These versions are still available at the official website.

Sadly, the last official update was posted in January 2006, and Ian Nowland has not been heard of since then. The last official version of Comment Reflower is not compatible with Visual Studio 2008, apparently due to changes in the extensibility architecture.

Terrified that I might now have to format my XML comments manually, I tinkered with the 2005 distribution until I got it to work with Visual Studio 2008. Note that this port is not only unofficial but also lacks the MSI setup package of previous versions, although there is a separate binary package for XCopy deployment. Both packages include a ReadMe file that describes the deployment and operation of the add-in.

Note: The Express editions of Visual Studio don’t support any plug-ins, so you need Standard edition or better to run Comment Reflower.

Binary Package

The current Visual Studio 2008 port of Comment Reflower is CommentReflower.zip (53.9 KB). This is a standard ZIP archive containing long file names. Just extract everything into one of the following directories, substituting your Windows user name for <User Name>, and restart Visual Studio:

• \Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Addins (on Windows XP)
• \Documents and Settings\<User Name>\My Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Addins (on Windows XP)
• \Users\<User Name>\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Addins (on Windows Vista and later)

Or extract the ZIP archive into a temporary directory of your choice, then study the enclosed ReadMe file before deciding how to proceed.

Source Package

The source code from which the current binary package was created is CommentReflowerSource.zip (172 KB). This is a standard ZIP archive containing subdirectories and long file names. Again, just extract everything into a directory of your choice, then refer to the enclosed ReadMe file for detailed information.