Navigating your codebase and forget what exactly that method does? Looking for quick, easy-to-digest information on your code at any point in your development journey?
We are excited to announce that now when you hover over symbols in your codebase, you’ll be able to invoke Copilot conveniently within the Quick Info dialog to learn more about a given symbol and enhance existing or lacking code documentation.
How it works
Normally, in the Quick info window, you would see comments or xml documentation if it was generated by your team in the code, which can sometimes be unrelated to what the given symbol does. Copilot can help augment existing documentation or lacking documentation.
Just hover over your symbol of interest and click on the link to learn more about what it does in natural language, rather than having to go to the definition and parse through all the code.
Copilot uses the declaration and definition of the given symbol to provide you an understanding of it at any invocation.
For example, when working with unfamiliar library code, there is often context from the source code of the symbol definition to infer the purpose of the symbol.
Try it out
This feature is available in any C++ codebase as of Visual Studio 2022 version 17.10. Stay tuned for upcoming support for other languages and please let us know anything you’d like to see added to this feature. You’ll need an active GitHub Copilot subscription. Download the latest version of Visual Studio and give it a try.
In addition, our team is working hard on improving C++ integrations with Copilot Chat, so please let us know any other enhancements you’d like to see to your C++ workflows and content you’d like to see.
We welcome all types of feedback on your experience with the product. Comment below, or you can find us via email at visualcpp@microsoft.com or via X at @VisualC.
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