I am building a Visual Studio extension (VSIX) with menu commands depending on the options for the extension. Its dynamic, what commands (how many) depends on the options.
I have a solution for it that uses the command-table, like: Dynamically add menu items
I would like to skip the command-table and build the menus totally programmatically, like: HOWTO: Package with commands created by code
The reason is to make it more dynamic. So if the user adds/changes/deletes in the options of the extension it would be handled dynamically (programmatically). On saving options the menu-command tree would be rebuildt. If I use a command-table I will have to add/delete nodes there to be able to solve it.
The thing I can not figure out is howto add the objects for "groups" and "menus" programmatically.
So I am out for the class/interface that has "AddGroup" or "AddMenu" as methods.
Is this at all possible or do I have to use the command-table? If it is possible I would appreciate links to code-examples for it.
Regards Hans
MVP Carlos Quintero has published sample code using IVsProfferCommmands3.AddNamedCommand that illustrates how to programmatically add menu items via the automation services (formerly utilized by the now discontinued add-in extensibility model).
https://github.com/visualstudioextensibility/VSX-Samples/tree/master/PackageCommandsCreatedByCode
While add-ins are no longer supported, the automation interfaces are still present. So you can use these, bearing in mind these menu items (aka commands) are temporary.
Also, the sample code here is a little outdated, using Package instead of AsyncPackage, and ProvideAutoLoad attributes. So you'll also want to read up on the following:
https://github.com/microsoft/VSSDK-Extensibility-Samples/tree/master/AsyncPackageMigration
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/updates-to-synchronous-autoload-of-extensions-in-visual-studio-2019/
Sincerely,
Related
I am looking for free extension that has one simple functionality which is sidebar file navigation like is in SuperCharger or Resharper (see attached screenshots). Sadly both of them are paid :-( Does anyone have a good alternative?
Visual studio has Class View window for a quite a while.
You can try Productivity Power Tools, with it, you can:
Expand code files to navigate to its classes, expand classes to navigate to their members, and so on (C# and VB only)
Search your solution, all the way down to class members
Filter your solution or projects to see just opened files, unsaved files, and so on
View related information about classes and members (such as references or callers/callees for C#)
Preview images by hovering over them, or preview rich information by hovering over code items
We've also added support for multiple selection and drag & drop.
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=VisualStudioProductTeam.ProductivityPowerTools
I know its an old question, but as i was looking for an alternative to supercharger // Resharper (for the navigation only) few days ago, and had looked on stack before doing my search (and as I found the answers not exactly what i was looking for) ...
After testing a few extensions I finally found a good alternative to those two paid solutions :
https://github.com/sboulema/CodeNav/blob/master/README.md
You can also just download it from the extensions menu , search for CodeNav .
Best.
I would like to be able to include a screenshot of a control inside my code, this way making control identification easier for new members on my team, is such a thing possible?
Maybe even the ability to just have the image on a network share with the path in a comment, and then have a plugin that when hovering over the link brings up the image?
EDIT (More detail):
I'm creating a test project, the application under test has over 1000 controls, some of them are similar in name and purpose, this can make it difficult at times for developers to reuse the API I am creating because the control name is simply not enough for quick identification of the control in use.
I use the word API very loosely too, none of this stuff will be consumed in web services, and it will always be white box with developers including a project reference and have direct access to the source code.
For every form in my application (The test one), I have a controls.cs file where all the controls for that form in the application under test are listed - This is where I want the hover to screenshot ability in the control definitions.
Another sure factor is that all developers will be using VS2013 (For now the base version), later this could be update 1 or 2.
As the initial author and senior developer on this project, these hover / image references (in the code) will be as useful to me personally as any 3rd party developers, or any later developers to join the initiative.
Thanks again, and I added a bounty!
I believe you can use Whole Tomato's free SourceLinks Visual Studio extension to do what you want - or at least get pretty close to it.
Built-in Functionality:
Out of the box, the extension allows you to specify comment patterns you want users to be able to take an action on. Once the patterns are specified, SourceLinks will highlight any occurrences of those patterns in the text editor. You will be able to double click the highlighted items and perform a pre-configured action (such as opening a link in an internal/external browser, or launching an executable).
You can see an example in the SourceLinks configuration dialog shown below:
(source: wholetomato.com)
So you could use this feature pretty painlessly to define a keyword such as Control Image and then put comments like the following in your code:
// Control Image: my_smart_list.jpg
SourceLinks would allow you double click this text, and you could have that configured to launch the image (using a file:// or http:// url depending on how and where your images are stored) either inside Visual Studio in it's internal browser, or in an external browser.
Custom Tooltips!
Now, if you want to put in some more effort into this and actually write some code, then SourceLinks allows you to create API Extensions to display custom tooltips when the user hovers over the marked text in the editor. The default installation of SourceLinks comes with sample API extensions that you can copy to create your own. See the article linked at the very top of the answer for more details on these samples.
This post in the SourceLinks forum informs us that SourceLinks expects the custom API Extension to return the tooltip value as FlowDocument XAML text. This is awesome news for us, because a FlowDocument can contain many types of elements, including formatted text, hyperlinks, and images.
Imanges in a Flow document can be specified both inline as well as externally.
Hope this helps!
I would use doxygen -- create the images somewhere in the source tree and use doxygen comments. You can embed the \image command in source comments (see docs) and doxygen will generate all the HTML documentation from there. I think doxygen is a great tool for documenting a codebase as you can generate the documentation directly from comments in the source and distribute or host the HTML separately.
Just a quick question: When talking in terms of an IDE, what is a property editor?
You're probably hearing about the Properties Window in Visual Studio that allows you to change the properties exposed by a control at Design Time.
It looks something like this (at least, if you're kickin it old school), but generally you'll find it implemented as a grid-based window in all IDEs:
Otherwise, you're probably talking about a custom class that inherits from UITypeEditor and allows you to add design-time support to a custom control that you've created. It works in conjunction with the Properties Window shown above to add additional functionality that is relevant to the specific needs of your custom control. This is discussed in detail in this CodeProject article.
Question ONE:
I'm still pretty new to .net, but have used Visual Studio for a few recent projects. I'm now working a new project and I was wondering if visual studio had anything built in that would allow you to browse all of the details about a control, etc..
Is MSDN the best place to go for this?
For instance if I wanted to see of all the methods, properties, etc.. Is there anything inside VS?
Question TWO:
Can anyone recommend, books, resources, that deal specificially with Visual Studio? What each window does, etc.. I have used it enough to complete a few projects, but I haven't seen much in the way of exactly what everything does and why.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Use reflector (it's free!) to get in-depth information about classes etc. Visual studio also has a built-in Object Browser.
P.S. Reflector allows you to reverse engineer assemblies as well, allowing you to view the actual code of a class / method.
P.P.S. Google is still a developer's best friend. Need information on a control, search for it on the web. (Which will lead you to MSDN a lot of the times, but will also get you examples and loads of blog entries).
Question ONE:
You can use the Object Browser (menu View\Object Browser) to see a hierarchical list of all known assemblies, classes, interfaces, enums, etc...
This only gives the signature of each item and not the code.
If you want to see the code, use .Net reflector.
You can also use the Object Browser in Visual Studio. There is usually an icon for it at the top (by the Toolbox, Solution Explorer, etc. icons) or you can navigate to it (View -> Object Browser). When it opens, you will see all of the libraries currently referenced (system and third party) on the left hand side. It's hierarchical, so you can start drilling down. There is a search box at the top, if you want to look for a particular class, method or library. That looks at all the system libraries, not just the ones referenced in your current project.
For more help with the object browser, look here.
Q1:
In Visual Studio:
Above the editor there are 2 dropdown lists:
Left: Shows Classes
Right: Shows Class Members
or Click View > Class View: to see all the classes in the whole solution
I had a similar rub when I started using VS after I had done a lot of Java coding. I was used to the Java API documentation to research properties and such.
I found the VS equivalent IMO, here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms229335.aspx
You can browse every class method, property, constructor, etc. right there. Their examples are decent.
In response to question 1, what I usually do is highlight the bit of framework code I'm interested in and hit F1 to bring up the documentation. For example:
Button myButton = new Button();
If you highlight the first Button and hit F1, you'll get an overview on Buttons in Windows Forms. If you highlight Button() and hit F1 you'll get the documentation on the Button class constructor.
In response to question 2, I'm not sure a book is the answer. I think reading a book on all the components of Visual Studio might be overkill. I'd say to keep on hacking away at your projects and page-fault information in via MSDN, Google, and StackOverflow as you need it. As with any IDE and framework, the more you use it the better you'll get at navigating and learning the ins and outs.
Are there any tools or plugins to design a Panel independently of a Form (Windows, not Web Form) within Visual Studio?
I've been using the designer and manually extracting the bits I want from the source, but surely there is a nicer way.
You could do all the design work inside of a UserControl.
If you go that route, instead of just copying the bits out of the user control, simply use the user control itself.
You could just write the code by hand!
As Chris Karcher said, you should probably use a user control. This will allow easy, VS-supported/-integrated reuse without having to manually fiddle with designer code.