--- title: "The Regexinator - VS.Net Addin to search documents using Regex" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/8/5/the-regexinator-vsnet-addin-to-search-documents-using-regex.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/8/5/the-regexinator-vsnet-addin-to-search-documents-using-regex.html" published: "2004-08-05T17:52:00" updated: "2004-08-05T17:52:00" tags: ["Cool Tools"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "Found this out through Darren's Regex weblog . The Regexinator looks like a cool idea that someone eventually had to do: It lets you search the active documents using Regex, and when you click on each result you are…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # The Regexinator - VS.Net Addin to search documents using Regex By Roy Osherove August 5, 2004 In [Cool Tools](https://osherove.com/blog/category/cool-tools) **Historical article** · Originally published August 5, 2004; technical details may be outdated. _Found this out through_ [_Darren's Regex weblog_](http://blogs.regexadvice.com/DNeimke/archive/2004/08/05/1442.aspx)_._ [The Regexinator looks like a cool idea](http://www.gotdotnet.com/Community/Workspaces/Workspace.aspx?id=69bcc9ad-e628-4920-bc07-c17e9b4525c8) that someone eventually had to do: It lets you search the active documents using Regex, and when you click on each result you are automatically taken to the found textin the document. It also has a search feature that uses [Regexlib.com's](http://www.regexlib.com/) web services. overall a great idea but beware - this is a very early version. After having a nice little chat with the two chief devs of this add-in - [James Avery](http://dotavery.com/blog/) and [Pete Wright](http://www.petewright.org/) (who I met for the first time online today) I figured out a couple of installation issues you might have to deal with: 1. The Addin window does not appear after installing it. Solution - open tools-Addin manager and uncheck the add-in 'regexinator". then re-open the dialog and check the add-in again. it should show up now. 2. The tool window might not be big enough to see the “Search button“. resize it to make it bigger. 3. web search does not work with proxy settings yet (did not work on my machine). will be fixed using [this peachy proxy settings class](http://weblogs.asp.net/rosherove/articles/34670.aspx). Great work guys! ## More in Cool Tools [All posts in Cool Tools](https://osherove.com/blog/category/cool-tools) - Sep 1, 2004 ### [Wanna win a free Visual Assist License?](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/9/1/wanna-win-a-free-visual-assist-license.html) - Aug 24, 2004 ### [Gmail Notifier - by Google, finally](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/8/24/gmail-notifier-by-google-finally.html) - Jul 22, 2004 ### [NUnit 2.2 beta 3 has been released - and some questions](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/7/22/nunit-22-beta-3-has-been-released-and-some-questions.html) - Jul 22, 2004 ### [MbUnit 2.17 released - with the cool database attributes I talked about](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/7/22/mbunit-217-released-with-the-cool-database-attributes-i-talk.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/