How-To's

Introducing the dotPeek 1.1 EAP

In our recent blog post on the ReSharper 8 EAP, we have mentioned certain improvements to the decompilation support. Today, we are happy to announce that the next version of dotPeek, our free decompiler, has also reached the EAP stage. Here are some of the features that you can try out today.

Export Assembly to Project

Many of you have asked us to add functionality for saving a decompiled assembly as a ready-to-build Visual Studio project. We have listened to your requests: now, if you right-click a decompiled assembly, you get the option to export it as a project:

All you need to do is provide the destination path and name of the project. You can also generate a solution (.sln) file if you need one.

The above generates a project (.csproj) file containing all the decompiled files. dotPeek is smart about creating projects – here are some of the optimizations it performs:

  • If PDB files are available, dotPeek restores the file and folder structure of the original project.

  • If the project has unsafe code, the project is configured to allow it.

  • The type of assembly is detected and the project is configured accordingly.

Incidentally, dotPeek also keeps track of your export history. If you try to export the project again, it will offer the following dialog:

Project File Support in Assembly Explorer

To make it easy to orient oneself in situations where parts of a solution exist only in compiled form and other parts exist as source code, dotPeek’s Assembly Explorer now supports Visual Studio projects (.csproj). You can automatically add the project to the Assembly Explorer after generating it from decompiled sources (see the Add project to Assembly Explorer checkbox in the above window):

Go to Everything

Just like ReSharper, dotPeek now uses Ctrl+T as the Go to Everything command, letting you navigate to either file, symbol or type within one menu:

Odds and Ends

Finally, here are a few more features that are available:

  • dotPeek now preserves window layout settings. It also keeps track of recently opened files.

  • Just like Visual Studio, dotPeek now lets you set bookmarks and navigate between them.

  • In addition to the MSI installer, dotPeek is now also available as a single executable file.

If you’re interested in seeing these features right now, download the dotPeek EAP and give it a go!

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