Object Browser Window

Ctrl+Click should take you to decompiled sources. Will that be enough?

While not quite as easy, it will get the job done. I had already discovered decompiled source, accessed via Ctrl+Click or F12. Then, viewing the file in the Structure Window will give me an overview of a class. Still, it lacks the ability to easily navigate between classes and name spaces like the VS Object Browser window. Curious, is there any reason code folding doesn't work on decompiled source?

Thanks!

Please upvote/comment https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/RIDER-2720.

Also:

1. Navigate -> File member is handy for navigation inside the decompiled source file.
2. We will definitely fix the https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/RIDER-3638

This is a HUGE gap for me, I work with massive code bases that assume you have an Object Browser to take the place of traditional generated API documentation the code is well commented and the Object Browser acted as an offline API documentation Rider doesn't seem to have one I can as a human browse so I have to go to 3rd party tools to generate that documentation and update as required, doable but a big gap over other IDEs.

Hello James McGhee 

Currently, Rider can browse library/third‑party assemblies in a tree using Assembly Explorer. You can load custom assemblies, navigate namespaces → types → members, and open declarations/decompiled sources. And for documentation/comments per symbol, you can use Quick Documentation (Ctrl+Q / hover), which shows XML docs (with formatting) or basic symbol info for any symbol, not just solution code.

So in practice, for a proprietary framework that ships as assemblies + XML docs, you can already treat “Assembly Explorer + Quick Documentation” as an offline API browser. It's not a single window, but functions like the offline API browser are there.

Please let me know if this could be useful for your work with massive code bases. If not, I can open a feature request on your behalf to improve it further.

Yes, I’m aware of those tools and that is essentially the current workaround. However, it does not really solve the problem.

When you need to ramp up on a very large codebase quickly, especially a proprietary framework without extensive public documentation or community resources, a structured API browser becomes extremely important. In those situations API documentation is the primary discovery tool.

Visual Studio has historically handled this well with the Object Browser. It provides a single place where you can explore assemblies, namespaces, types, and members in a structured and readable hierarchy.

In Rider the information technically exists, but it is fragmented across multiple tools such as Assembly Explorer, navigation search, and Quick Documentation. Each of these works individually, but together they do not provide the same clear, structured exploration workflow.

Because of that I often fall back to generating API documentation using tools such as Doxygen. That works, but it introduces other problems: it is static, must be regenerated as the code changes, and produces a separate documentation site that sits outside the IDE.

What I am really looking for is an integrated API browser inside Rider that presents assemblies, namespaces, types, and members in a clean hierarchical view, with documentation and navigation available in the same place. Essentially a real-time version of what Doxygen generates, but driven directly from the current state of the code.

This feels like it could be relatively low-hanging fruit since the IDE already has all the metadata required.

For note I already opened a feature request after this when I was looking for tools around O3DE :)

So I created this
https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/RIDER-136594/Feature-Request-Structured-API-Browser-for-Rider

Hope I did it right :)

Hello James McGhee 

Thanks for your reply and for filling a new feature request, you did it very well, thanks! I just added a couple of details for it to be processed. Remember to subscribe to get further updates and upvote to increase its visibility.

Have a great day!