Teach Yourself Visual Studio® .NET 2003 in 21 Days [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Introducing Extensibility

Extensibility is the concept of extending your existing environment to do things that are otherwise not there. For example, the Tools menu in Visual Studio .NET has a list of external applications that can be accessed from the integrated development environment (IDE). You can also add your own external tools to the Tools menu. This gives you greater flexibility in getting your hands on what you need faster. Using the automation model built into Visual Studio .NET, you can extend the IDE with internal tools and windows without ever leaving the environment you're working in.

Visual Studio .NET has a complete automation object model that makes all of this possible. Depending on the task, you might want to create a macro, create an add-in, or utilize the Visual Studio Integrator Program (VSIP).

Today we focus on macros, and tomorrow you learn about add-ins. But before we get into the world of macros, it's important to understand the three different automation options, and why you would or would not use them for your automation needs.

Macros

Macros are the least flexible of the extensibility objects that you can use in Visual Studio .NET. That isn't a bad thing at all; in fact, I think it's great. Because macros offer the most basic capability to repeat common tasks, they're super easy to start using without a learning curve. When I say least flexible, I mean that you can't do certain things with macrosthat's why add-ins exist. When you create a macro, you record your keystrokes and mouse clicks for a common task that you want to automate. After the recording is completed, you save the macro, and either add it to a toolbar or create a shortcut key for it, and you simply run the macro to complete the same task that you recorded. I can think of about 1,000 great candidates for macros, and you'll learn about some of them throughout the day.

Add-ins and Wizards

Add-ins are applications that are compiled and become part of the IDE. You can create an add-in with any component object model (COM) compatible language, such as Visual Basic .NET or C#. Because add-ins are COM objects, they must be registered in Windows before you can access them through Visual Studio .NET.

Add-ins are used to extend the functionality of the IDE itself. An add-in might or might not have an interface or a menu location. You can access add-ins in Visual Studio .NET by selecting the Add-in Manager from the Tools menu. After an add-in is registered on the local machine, it shows up in the Add-in Manager dialog box. One add-in, the Web hosting provider upload utility, is included in Visual Studio .NET. As you might be able to ascertain from its name, this add-in automates the process of uploading your Web project to your Web host of choice. You should consider using add-ins when you need to create advanced functionality within the IDE. You can also use add-ins to create custom property pages for Visual Studio .NET Tools, Options dialog box, to create tool windows like the toolbox, and to dynamically enable and disable menu commands in the IDE.

Wizards are similar to add-ins. Because wizards have been available in every Microsoft product since Office 2.0, you're most likely familiar with what they can do. A wizard provides a set of steps, some of which might be optional, to lead a user through a complicated task. Tomorrow, you learn about add-ins and their project template in Visual Studio .NET, which is actually called the Add-In Wizard!

The Visual Studio Integrator Program

The Visual Studio Integrator Program goes beyond macros and add-ins. VSIP enables third parties to integrate special features directly into Visual Studio .NET. When independent software vendors (ISVs) and corporate developers want to participate, they fill out a form on Microsoft's Web site, which is submitted to Summit Software. Microsoft then grants a license to the approved vendor. When approved, you receive the necessary tools to participate in the VSIP. Using this software development kit (SDK), you can develop your own custom code editors, design surfaces, new project types, and advanced debuggers. A good example of a VSIP is Great Plains Software, the accounting software arm of Microsoft. Great Plains has a custom IDE that enables you to extend its software using Visual Studio.

Now that we've taken a brief look at the various automation offerings in Visual Studio .NET, you can learn how to extend the IDE using macros.