In Visual Studio 2010, is it possible to display a start/welcome page when opening a solution file?
I'd like to have some way to show build information to new developers joining the team.
Have you already considered writing your own extension for Visual Studio?
Soma Somasegar has pointed out where to start in his blog here.
You will need to install the Visual Studio SDK (online documentation here) from samples at MSDN.
I have not done this myself yet, but I know that you can create tool windows that already load with Visual Studio. You can request a notification when a solution is loaded and then execute your own custom code.
(I just read about the notfications yesterday in Rico Mariani's blog).
Should be possible. :-)
Related
Let a "Breakpoints" window (by default opened by Debug>Windows>Breakpoints [ctrl+B, D]) serve as an example. Basically I select few breakpoints in it and I would like to know in my add-in which elements in this window are selected. I am aware that I can get collection of breakpoints in project but I would like to know what elements are selected in "Breakpoints" window.
"Is it possible to get selected items in window or even access its content at all?"
Also I am not sure whenever or not should I post a separate question for this but is there actually a way to capture user activity in IDE like for example capturing an event when user sets (adds) a breakpoint?
Originally I also asked if is it possible to achieve certain things in Visual Studio Express Edition. But this part is irrevelant.
Conclusion:
(after reading jessehouwing's answer)
I guess it is not possible using an Add-ins. Use VSPackages isntead. Also Add-ins are deprecated as of Visual Studio 2013 version.
As mentioned in my comments, what you're trying to accomplish is explicitly prohibited in the Visual Studio Express edition and is a violation of it's license. To extend the product, you need to have at least Visual Studio Professional Edition. many of the extensibility points will actively refuse any communication with 3rd party add-ins.
Almost all the things you're asking are possible using Visual Studio Extensibility once you've installed the professional edition. Products like OzCode show that almost everything is possible. Remember that most features inside visual studio are themselves extensions of the product.
Your question, indeed a whole list of questions, is indeed not the way to ask something on StackOverflow. I can give you some pointers to the documentation, which you've probably already found, and maybe to some open source products that themselves extend parts of Visual Studio that can serve as examples, but from there you'll have to piece something together until you're able to ask more specific questions.
Events you can subscribe to, the breakpoints are a CommandEvents I suspect.
Manipulating windows inside Visual Studio
Projects that extend the debugger that might serve as an example:
PyTools (debugger for Python inside Visual Studio)
Node.js tools for Visual studio (extending the Immediate Window)
But there is no easy answer to your question that fits inside this window. I'd suggest you use a tool like Reflector to look at how Microsoft accomplishes certain things (most of Visual Studio Extensibility is written in .NET anyways) and to look at open source projects that extend visual studio behavior. There are quite a few out there on Codeplex.
I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to accomplish and how it's different from the Breakpoints features inside Visual Studio Professional and up.
I suggest you ask your question in the Visual Studio Extensibility forums over on MSDN, which is in a collaborative forum format, instead of a Q&A format, allowing people to answer your question bit by bit.
I was wondering if any one knows of any plugins that can be used in Visual Studio 2010 to set a startup page for a project.
What I want to do is display some important notes regarding the project when its open each time.
Thanks
May be you need a look at this Adrian Collier - MSFT's article:
Creating a Custom Start Page
I'm trying to learn game programming. I am using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express on Windows Vista. I want to know how to create a resource file (.rc). The microsoft website gives some fairly ambiguous instructions on creating one. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/sxdy04be.aspx. If I go to my Solution explorer, right click and select Add New Item, the IDE does not give a .rc file as one of the options. It only gives me a .cpp, .h and windows form as options. I don't know what to do. I just can't figure out where i'm goofing up. I'd be very grateful if someone could point me in the right direction.
Thanks a lot
Merry christmas!
The Visual Studio Express 2010 does not have the ability to edit resource files. Take a look at this MSDN page it is the listing of which features each version of VS 2010 contain.
From above link. There is no resource editor in the Express Version.
This link discusses a way to add a resource editor to Visual Studio Express.
Also take a look at this MSDN Forum Link It has some tips and links to external editors.
In Visual Studio 2008, there was the device manager for setting up additional templates and options for the emulator. None of these options are available with Visual Studio 2010 which I understand as the features were removed.
When the Phone Tools are installed, the device target box comes back but there are no options at all.
Basically, I was just wondering where this list gets its options from and if there is any way at all to configure it?
The closest I got to was find the %LocalAppData%\microsoft\phone tools folder, but not sure this is correct as it appears to be more related to the emulator itself (e.g. if deleted, it gets recreated when you run.).
(Link to something a post that helped me years ago)
It took me a while, but it looks like I have found it.
I was on to the correct path with %LocalAppData%\microsoft\phone tools. All the targets are in the conman_ds_platform.xslt file.
I have no idea why they no longer provide an interface for customising - but it looks to me that despite MS taking the feature out of Visual Studio, it is still possible to customise this and add your own devices just fine.
... Next, depending on time, I will try to convert the Windows Mobile/CE project templates to VS 2010 and see if it is possible to do full development on Visual Studio 2010.
In relation to this stackoverflow question, how would I go about creating my own Visual Studio 2008 plug-in?
I've checked the Visual Studio Developer Centre on MSDN, but the amount of info is overwhelming. There are loads of project types, and I don't even know where to start.
Where should I start looking if I want to write something which meets the following requirements:
A plug-in that runs like a "service" in Visual Studio, and is able to poll Visual Studio for information, and handle Visual Studio events.
The info I'd like to access from VS are things like, what projects are currently open, who has them open, and other solution/project file based info.
The events I'd like to be able to handle are things like, the opening/closing/editing/creating/deleting of Solutions / Projects / individual files.
I'd also like to be able to handle any interaction with VS on a per solution basis. So, I'd like to handle any interaction with files, even code editing, but also, just other interaction, like with the menus, or just the IDE itself.
As well as these, I'd also like to be able to store data somewhere. Where is this usually done? Can I add Metadata to the Solution file? Or, does it make sense to save this info to a small local instance of a database, that is somehow attached to the solution..?
I just need a push in the right direction, is any of this possible? What part of the Visual Studio Developer Centre should I focus on? What APIs should I check out?
cheers!
An add-in can do most of that. There's a template in VS2008 for creating a base add-in.
I have an add-in that you can download that hooks into the solution/project load events etc - it is free and comes with source code ( http://www.huagati.com/projectloader/download/huagatiprojectloader.zip ). This particular add-in detects when projects/solutions are loaded and pre-loads referenced assemblies to work around a CLR bug that can cause VS2008 to crash. Anyway, the source code for it shows how to detect some of the events you're looking for.
Other than that, the definitive resource on add-in development and all the little quirks and tricks involved is Carlos Quintero's blog ( http://msmvps.com/blogs/carlosq/ ) and the "howto" article series on his website ( http://www.mztools.com/resources_vsnet_addins.aspx ).
Craig Skibo's blog ( http://blogs.msdn.com/craigskibo/ ) also has some useful tips.
You want:
Visual Studio Extensibility Developer Center
VSX Forum
Visual Studio 2008 SDK
Professional Visual Studio Extensibility by Keyvan Nayyeri
Buy the book, if nothing else.