Visual Studio Extension Development Tips && CodeSnippets

Some useful links and pieces of code in the scope of Visual Studio Extension (vsix) development.

General

Extensions for the Visual Studio gallery

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/

Get Started

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/extensibility/?view=vs-2019&amp%3BWT.mc_id=docs-twitter-jamont

https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/visualstudio-docs/tree/main/docs/extensibility

List of available services for extension author

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/extensibility/internals/list-of-available-services?view=vs-2019

Chat

https://gitter.im/Microsoft/extendvs

A place were questions lives

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/topics/vs-extensions.html

Youtube channel

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLReL099Y5nRdG2n1PrY_tbCsUznoYvqkS

Asynchronous and multithreaded programming within VS using the JoinableTaskFactory

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/premier-developer/asynchronous-and-multithreaded-programming-within-vs-using-the-joinabletaskfactory/

Also, make sure you are familiar with https://github.com/microsoft/vs-threading/blob/main/doc/index.md , and, specifically, with https://github.com/microsoft/vs-threading/blob/main/doc/cookbook_vs.md .

Code snippets

MessageBox

VsShellUtilities.ShowMessageBox(
    this.package,
    "Cannot parse configuration XML file. Please verify it and try again.",
    "Configuration error",
    OLEMSGICON.OLEMSGICON_CRITICAL,
    OLEMSGBUTTON.OLEMSGBUTTON_OK,
    OLEMSGDEFBUTTON.OLEMSGDEFBUTTON_FIRST
    );

Also, this video is useful.

Wait for solution is fully loaded

Run periodically:

var solution = AsyncPackage.GetGlobalService(typeof(SVsSolution)) as IVsSolution;

await ThreadHelper.JoinableTaskFactory.SwitchToMainThreadAsync();

object asm;
solution.GetProperty((int)__VSPROPID4.VSPROPID_IsSolutionFullyLoaded, out asm);

if (asm is bool)
{
    if ((bool)asm)
    {
        _isSolutionFullyLoaded = true;
        return;
    }
}

... but it will not help you, if you need a project references

because references are the subject for lazy loading in modern VS 2019. You need to wait until intellisense is activated:

var operationProgress = Package.GetGlobalService(typeof(SVsOperationProgress)) as IVsOperationProgress2;
if (operationProgress != null)
{
    var opss = operationProgress as IVsOperationProgressStatusService;

    if (opss != null)
    {
        var intelliSenseStageStatus = opss.GetStageStatus(CommonOperationProgressStageIds.Intellisense);
        intelliSenseStageStatus.InProgressChanged += IntelliSenseStatus_InProgressChanged;
    }
}

...

private void IntelliSenseStatus_InProgressChanged(object sender, OperationProgressStatusChangedEventArgs e)
{
    if (!e.Status.IsInProgress)
    {
        //here project references is loaded and ready to work with
    }
}

Please refer to https://github.com/lsoft/DpdtInject and https://github.com/microsoft/VSSDK-Extensibility-Samples/tree/master/OperationProgress for additional details.

Stylization for current VS theme

Here is a good example to how stylize a whole window.

Visual Studio events

Use

DTE.DTEEvents

For example EnvDTE.DTE.DTEEvents.OnBeginShutdown should be used to determine the moment of VS is started to close. You need to take into account this link - Your solution events aren't firing because the objects are getting collected.

Open file in Visual Studio

dte.ItemOperations.OpenFile(documentFullPath, "{" + VSConstants.LOGVIEWID_Code + "}");

Open file in Visual Studio and navigate to the required piece of code

public static void OpenAndNavigate(
    string documentFullPath,
    int startLine,
    int startColumn,
    int endLine,
    int endColumn
    )
{
    if (documentFullPath == null)
    {
        throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(documentFullPath));
    }

    ThreadHelper.ThrowIfNotOnUIThread(nameof(VisualStudioHelper.OpenAndNavigate));

    var openDoc = AsyncPackage.GetGlobalService(typeof(IVsUIShellOpenDocument)) as IVsUIShellOpenDocument;

    IVsWindowFrame frame;
    Microsoft.VisualStudio.OLE.Interop.IServiceProvider sp;
    IVsUIHierarchy hier;
    uint itemid;
    Guid logicalView = VSConstants.LOGVIEWID_Code;

    if (ErrorHandler.Failed(
        openDoc.OpenDocumentViaProject(
            documentFullPath,
            ref logicalView,
            out sp,
            out hier,
            out itemid,
            out frame)
        )
        || frame == null)
    {
        return;
    }

    object docData;
    frame.GetProperty((int)__VSFPROPID.VSFPROPID_DocData, out docData);

    // Get the VsTextBuffer  
    var buffer = docData as VsTextBuffer;
    if (buffer == null)
    {
        IVsTextBufferProvider bufferProvider = docData as IVsTextBufferProvider;
        if (bufferProvider != null)
        {
            IVsTextLines lines;
            ErrorHandler.ThrowOnFailure(
                bufferProvider.GetTextBuffer(out lines)
                );

            buffer = lines as VsTextBuffer;

            Debug.Assert(buffer != null, "IVsTextLines does not implement IVsTextBuffer");

            if (buffer == null)
            {
                return;
            }
        }
    }

    IVsTextManager textManager = Package.GetGlobalService(typeof(VsTextManagerClass)) as IVsTextManager;

    var docViewType = default(Guid);

    textManager.NavigateToLineAndColumn(
        buffer,
        ref docViewType,
        startLine,
        startColumn,
        endLine,
        endColumn
        );
}

Unsorted

Visual Studio Toolkit

https://github.com/VsixCommunity/Community.VisualStudio.Toolkit

Visual Studio's KnownMonikers

The images contained in Visual Studio's IVsImageService: http://glyphlist.azurewebsites.net/knownmonikers/

Makes it easier to create and maintain .imagemanifest files: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=MadsKristensen.ImageManifestTools

Debugging codelens

To debug your implementation of IAsyncCodeLensDataPointProvider you need to attach ServiceHub.HostCLR.x86.exe, otherwise not breakpoint hit occurs. There are a few these processed, so attach them all!

Debug & Release

If your VSIX is in Debug mode, but you are receiving a message like 'you are debugging a release version' of your vsix, and nothing from Internet helps you, try to set the following checkbox:

and even this checkbox did not help you?

If so, you have only one option behind: you need to sign your assemblies like so:

MissingMethodException

At first, it useful to open the Debug -> Windows -> Modules window when debugging to see where the assembly was being loaded from. You should see something like the following:

All paths of your dlls should be correct, in my case - from vsix install folder. It is a starting point. Your dll may be loaded from GAC instead of local version, investigate! In my case one of the dll are loaded from C:\Users\<iam>\AppData\Local\Temp\VS\AnalyzerAssemblyLoader\<someguid>\1\my.dll. I suspect it is because that dll is C# Source Generator, but by VSIX uses it as a regular DLL. This fact (I suspect again) interfered the process of VSIX loading, and broke it. Solution is not to load SG-assembly. Leavy in that assembly only 1 type - SG type, move other to the different assembly and load it in VSIX.

Amazing example of codelens extension (Microscope)

If you are developing a codelens VS extension, you 100% should to take a look to this repo.