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I wanted to take a look to the Visual Studio extensibility SDK, specifically developing over the Isolated Shell. I would like to be able to use the C# code editor with syntax highlighting, intellisense, etc...
I've already read a bit about how to define your own content to support these features but I understand that for a language already supported like C# the needed package exists in the VSSDK and can be loaded into the isolated shell.
So, when creating an Isolated Shell application from the standard VS template and running the generated project, I can create a new C# file containing a class definition, but it is missing the syntax highlighting and the intellisense. I've found some very basic documentation on extending the Isolated Shell, but I cannot find how to enable the standard editors.
Is it possible to load/enable the standard VS editor extensions? If so, can you point me to any documentation or code example that can guide me a bit?
Thanks!
You can't do that. It's more a licensing issue. If you could put/enable everything in the isolated shell, then nobody would buy Visual Studio anymore.
Here is a more official answer from here: How to connect C# VSPackage to Visual Studio Shell Isolated Mode to have syntax highlighting
VS languages like C#, VB, and C++ cannot be loaded in the isolated
shell. Hence the reason we call it isolated :-)
Additionally it should be noted, the integrated shell does not include
these packages, nor are they licensed for redistribution; as they are
distributed with the Visual Studio product.
The integrated shell is basically the core VS IDE, wherease the
isolated shell is essentially the same IDE, but runs using a different
stub application (so you can customize it to suite your needs). But
the isolated shell does not ship with, or will it load any of the
mainstream language/project services that ship with VS Pro.
I recently got a job working for a company who uses several programming languages but mainly focuses on C#, and thus uses Visual Studio 2008.
As lame as it sounds, I don't know how to use it productively. I don't know any of the keyboard shortcuts, I didn't know you could restrict builds to certain parts of a solution until someone showed me. I'm sure there's a way to "Clean" "Build" "Run" without manually initiating each process, but I don't know what it is.
If it was just a "Search the help" problem, that'd be easy to solve, but I don't even know what I might be missing. Is there a productivity feature that everyone else uses and I don't? {Shrug}
So, what simple features of Visual Studio am I likely to be missing, and how can I find out other power-features to help me become more productive?
You can learn tons from walkthroughs, like the File/New/NerdDinner talk that Scott Hanselman gave at Mix 2009. The talk is online here:
http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX09/T49F
Until I saw that talk I didn't realize that you could just drag a SQL Server data file into the Visual Studio APP_DATA folder, and it would automatically hook it up for you. A copy of the data file also goes along for the ride when you build your application.
There are several books that just talk about Visual Studio and how to use it productively. Here are some:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dd285474.aspx
The problem with providing tips in an online forum like this one is that it can be difficult to "connect the dots." The walkthroughs are really good because you can see where things are in Visual Studio, and what sequences of steps are required to perform common actions.
Sara Ford wrote the book on VS tips and tricks:
http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft%C2%AE-Visual-Studio%C2%AE-Tips-PRO-Developer/dp/0735626405/
Here is a blog post with 24 of Sara Ford's tips
http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford/archive/2009/05/28/devdays-09-24-visual-studio-tips.aspx/
I also recommend James Avery's book:
http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Studio-Hacks-Tools-Turbocharging/dp/0596008473
I hope this helps.
As a start here is a poster which shows all the keyboard shortcuts for commonly used features of VS2008 (in C# mode).
In terms of tooling, ReSharper has a number of good features for improving productivity within VS2008.
I have never done any Windows coding and I would like to give it a try. To create a simple application e.g. a window that displays a plain "Hello World" message.
What IDE (open source?) would I need to start of with and what language is used for the native Windows applications?
This is not for professional use, just for an amateur.
I'd recommend going for Visual Studio Express, you can use c#, Visual Basic (VB.NET) or c++, it's free and easy. It also makes the step to the larger Visual Studio simple if you're ever going to do that.
check out Microsoft Visual Studio Express
edit: added VB.NET
Since i'm editing anyway, how about some additions; If you prefer opensource you could also look into SharpDevelop (c# and boo) and/or monodevelop (c#, but better for linux/multiplatform, not so great for just windows imho but yout mileage may vary)
edit: 6 years later.
Microsoft has, in the mean time, provided us with Visual Studio Community Edition, which is in essence a complete Visual Studio professional, but free (some restrictions do apply). I do believe this is now the absolute best way to develop most non commercial, and possibly some commercial, Windows oriented projects you can get.
notepad + .NET Framework + cmd
type:
using System.Windows.Forms;
public class HelloWorld
{
public static void Main()
{
MessageBox.Show("Hello, World!");
}
}
save as %WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\vX.X.XXXXX\hello.cs
open command line
cd %WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\vX.X.XXXXX
%homedrive%
compile:
csc /target:winexe hello.cs
run:
hello
If you're looking for open source IDE I recommend Eclipse with plugins or MonoDevelop (wikipedia).
There are a lot of IDEs out there, if you want to develop for windows I'd recommend .net and the free "express" series of Microsoft tools.
If you're new to gui programming, Shoes is a fun way to pick up some of the concepts as well as learn some ruby along the way. It's primarily a learning tool however, so you'll need to eventually pick up Visual Studio (or something similar) when you're ready to develop a functional windows app.
Edit: I see you've done some programming in linux from one of your comments, so this might be a bit too rudimentary for you. For anyone new to programming and wanting to try their hand at a windows program, Shoes is worth looking at. The free version of Visual Studio is definitely what you'll want to check out, or alternatively you could continue to work in Eclipse on windows, as you're already familiar with it.
Try either AutoIt or AutoHotkey. I personally recommend AutoHotkey.
For LOTS of sample (and useful!) scripts, visit this page: http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Skrommel/
You could look into VBScript, using notepad to edit the code. It is quite simple to program with, and there are a lot of examples.
Hello World would be done by placing the following into a file called HelloWorld.vbs and double clicking it from an explorer window.
MsgBox("Hello World")
A message box with hello world will then display.
There is wxDev-Cpp IDE (google for it). It's great for small apps. It's based on wxWidgets, so you also get portability for free.
If you're looking for Open Source and cross platform compatibility I would look at Eclipse. However if you simply want "free" I would also look at IntelliJ IDE which is designed for JAVA development and is also cross platform but not Open Source. They offer some free licensed versions.
You don't have to use an IDE to create a Hello World gui application.
Libraries like Qt, wxWidgets, GTK+, etc, allow you to write such programs, and their tutorials usually have some sample "hello word" programs.
UPDATE
I believe most GUI libraries (try to) maintain platform native look and feel; or at least that's what the docs say.
I don't see a Visual Studio plugin for it (although I didn't look that hard, so I might have missed it), and searches turn up random third-party solutions, but is there something that comes with PowerShell or something that plugs into Visual Studio?
Visual Studio templates are available here. And there are samples in the Server 2008 SDK for developing providers and hosts.
If you are talking about an IDE for scripting, see this question (How to Get Started with PowerShell)
I mostly use PowerGui Script Editor. It allows me to use multi-file editing and debugging as well as straight command-line stuff.
PowerShell v2 CTP has a nice GUI interface which includes the ability to run multiple runspaces, and edit and run scripts. The script editor has syntax highlighting which is very helpful. PSH v2 also has other useful features such as script cmdlets. It's very cool. PowerGUI is supposed to be pretty neat too although I haven't personally used it. Before PSH v2 thhough, I used to use Textpad with a syntax file that was created for the pre-release version of PowerShell - Monad.
Have you seen powershell.com which has a couple of excited reviews.
The beauty of PS is the command line. To be honest with you, I do the vast majority of my development at the command line. With the PowerTab snapin from //\O//, I have as good intellisense as I have found in any IDE for PS. Once I have all the parts worked out at the command line then I use VIM to put it all into a script.
PrimalScript by Sapien is good. It's pay though.
Depends on what you mean by "develop."
PowerShell can be used quite effectively from the command line without scripting. However, if you do get into scripting, products include PowerShell Plus, PrimalScript, and PowerGUI.
If you're developing cmdlets and snap-ins, Visual Studio doesn't require any plug-ins, although you do need the reference assemblies available in the Windows SDK.
Visual Studio has no plans to host PowerShell as a script editor - the Visual Studio team feels that most admins wouldn't have Visual Studio, and that their goal is to make better development tools, not scripting tools (which is pretty distinct in terms of features that you need to be more efficient). So don't look for PowerShell scripting to show up in Visual Studio, at least not in the immediate future. There are some third-party stuff to get it in there, but nothing as good as the dedicated script editors I listed above.
ISE is what comes with PowerShell(so you don't need to install anything). This is how you can get to it.
From Start menu go to Powershell command line.
Type ise , you should see something like this:
I actually find that Notepad++ is very useful to me when scripting in Powershell. I find it easier to navigate and visually understand the overall flow of a script with the intelligent markup, which includes If-Then-Else and For loop marking.
Sapiens Powershell Studio 2012 - hands down the best Powershell specific IDE.
http://www.sapien.com/software/powershell_studio
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Closed 10 years ago.
Can anyone recommend any good add-ons or plugins for Microsoft Visual Studio?
Freebies are preferred, but if it is worth the cost then that's fine.
SmartPaster - (FREE) Copy/Paste code generator for strings
AnkhSvn - (FREE) SVN Source Control Integration for VS.NET
VisualSVN Server - (FREE) Source Control
ReSharper - IDE enhancement that helps with refactoring and productivity
CodeRush - Code gen macros on steroids
Refactor - Code refactoring aid
CodeMaid (FREE) - Code cleanup, organization and complexity analysis
CodeSmith - Code Generator
GhostDoc - (FREE) Simple code commenting tool
DXCore (FREE) and its many awesome plugins: DxCore Community Plugins, CR_Documentor, CodeStyleEnforcer, RedGreen
TestDriven.Net - (FREE/PAY) Unit Testing Aid
Reflector - (PAY) Feature rich .Net Disassembler Reflector AddIn's
Web Deployment Projects - Provides additional functionality to build and deploy Web sites and Web applications (source).
StudioTools - (FREE) Navigation assistant, code metrics tool, incremental search, file explorer in visual studio and tear off editor windows. Moved from old site (archive.org) to new site and discontinued.
Not free, but ReSharper is definitely one recommendation.
Whole Tomato's Visual Assist X. I absolutely swear by it. I would like to see a better plug in for Lint than Visual Lint by Riverblade, but since that will eventually be moved onto the build server I don't mind running it every couple of days manually.
PowerCommands is a Microsoft-created plugin that offers a variety of new features that one would think probably should have been in Visual Studio in the first place.
These include
Copying/Pasting project references!
"Open Containing Folder" to jump straight to the hard-drive location of a file or project
Automatic reorganizig and sorting of using statements
"Open Command Prompt Here" to open a command prompt in any of your project folders.
Collapse Projects
RockScroll is awesome, and free.
Addendum
As #Andrei points out, MetalScroll is a better alternative. It's Open Source, and corrects some annoying things about RS.
I'm a big fan of CodeRush and Refactor! Pro by DevExpress. I've been using them for a number of years, and without a doubt it makes me a faster developer. Also, both are built on a free framework called DXCore that allows you to develop your own plug-ins for Visual Studio, and the sky is the limit there...
Resharper
Resharper MbUnit Test Runner Add-On
SQL Prompt for Database Projects (works inside your SQL Management Studio as well)
Ankh SVN 2.0+ for free SVN support (v1.x pales in comparison)
TeamCity plug-in to monitor your builds, personal builds, and bug tracking
I find Ghost Doc to be very useful.
GhostDoc is a free add-in for Visual Studio that automatically generates XML
documentation comments for C#. Either by using existing documentation inherited
from base classes or implemented interfaces, or by deducing comments from
name and type of e.g. methods, properties or parameters.
If you use SVN for source control, definitely get VisualSVN. It enables TortoiseSVN interactions from within the Visual Studio IDE.
I also echo the Resharper comment. Retail price is a little steep, but if you're a student or otherwise educationally affiliated, it's actually pretty cheap.
+1 Visual Assist.
It's unfortunate that you need a plugin to get really good intellisense but it's definitely worth paying for.
LinqPad is great for testing linq to objects/xml/sql. Free download.
What about IncrediBuild? This is a nice distributed build system with visual studio integration.
Clipboard Manager
Maintains your clipboard data through removal of lines, a few other nice items but that one alone makes me happy.
Regionerate
While some have problems with regions I think if you use them, this tool is for you. Automatically region'izes your code into appropriate region blocks. Fully configurable for custom items etc.
VSCommands 2010
from the website:
Latest version supports:
Manage Reference Paths
Prevent accidental Drag & Drop in Solution Explorer
Prevent accidental linked file delete
Apply Fix (automatically fix build errors/warnings)
Open PowerShell
Show Assembly Details
Create Code Contract
Cancel Build when first project fails
Debug Output - custom formatting
Build Output - custom formatting
Search Output - custom formatting
Configure WPF Rendering
Configure Fusion Logs
Configure IE for debugging
Locate Source File
Thumbnails in IDE Navigator
Extended support for xaml, aspx, css, js and html files
Disable Ctrl + Mouse Wheel Zoom
Zoom to Mouse Pointer
Configurability
Attach to local IIS
Copy Full Path
Build Startup Projects
Open Command Prompt
Search Online
Build Statistics
Group linked items
Copy/Paste Reference
Copy/Paste as Link
Collapse Solution
Group items directly from user interface (DependantUpon)
Open In Expression Blend
Locate in Solution
Edit Project File
Edit Solution File
Show All Files
and others, so try it now!
http://trolltech.com/products/qt/">Qt Cross-Platform Application Framework
Qt is a cross-platform application framework for desktop and embedded development. It includes an intuitive API and a rich C++ class library, integrated tools for GUI development and internationalization, and support for Java™ and C++ development
They have a plug-in for Visual Studio that costs a bit of money, but it is worth every penny.
I've been using Visual Assist X for nearly two years now, and I find it so useful I can honestly say that if my employer didn't provide it, I'd have to pay for it myself.
I also use Cool Commands and SlickEdit (the free version), whose File Explorer and Command Spy tools are quite useful.
+1 for Visual Assist
And I will add VLH (Visual Local History) which provides a kind of local source control system. Every time you save a file, the plugin add a copy in the local repository.
ViEmu
vi/vim support inside VS
I found this site called Visual Studio Gallery - it has a lot of visual studio add-ins. I'm browsing it right now and I recommend everyone to visit it.
Consolas font
Free font from MS designed for reading code.
Try MetalScroll!! It's better than Rockscroll
Sonic File Finder for when you have loads of files in your solutions and searching for them in the solution explorer becomes a pain in the wrist.
You might also find DPack interesting. Several tools and enhancements rolled into one neat package.
MZTools is great too.
+1 for CodeRush & Refactor Pro. I've been using CodeRush since its Delphi incarnations, and it's utterly wonderful. The mantra of "Code at the speed of thought" is very close to reality ;)
Microsoft StyleCop provides code style checking for C#, we use it all the time and love it (free)
Axialis IconWorkshop has a Visual Studio add-in which is now free for VS2008 users.
Resharper Yes another vote, because I can't upvote everyone who suggests it :)
Workspace Whiz for C++, I used to live by Workspace Whiz but haven't used it in VS2008 as I hadn't realised there was an update. Will have to give it a try again.
If you're doing C++ coding, hands down Visual Assist.
I love CopySourceAsToHTML as a cool little addin. It's great if you want to copy code blocks for blogging and the like while maintaining your syntax formatting.
I think this is still the url.. you have to do some manual work to set it up with 08.
http://www.jtleigh.com/people/colin/software/CopySourceAsHtml/
For the laptop bound or for those with vi/vim key bindings burned into the brain I would recommend ViEmu.
If you have not tried editing with vi key bindings here is why you may want to try "Why, oh WHY, do those #?#! nutheads use vi?"
AtomineerUtils Pro Documentation - automatic DocXml/Doxygen/JavaDoc/Qt doc-comment generation/updating (similar to GhostDoc, but more powerful & flexible, and supports C#, C++, C++/CLI, C, Java and Visual Basic code).
The style of the generated comments is very configurable, and automatic re-formatting (such as whitespace control and word wrapping) can be optionally applied to keep the comments as readable as possible. It also has many helpers to allow users to read and convert most legacy doc-comments into any of the above formats.
(I'm the author, but I believe the above is an accurate and objective description. This add-in was free when this answer was first added, but to cover the costs of hosting, supporting, and continuing to improve the addin in monthly releases, it is now $10 with a 30-day free trial)
I'm always amazed that more people don't know about/use NDepend - it shows all dependencies at every level of your code, and will even draw pretty box and arrow pictures showing how confused your architecture really is :) Together with TestDriven.Net, I can't imagine working without it any more. Free/cheap.