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

Introducing Macros in Visual Studio .NET

Macros are typically made up of multiple simple tasks that you need to do repetitively. Macros are written in Visual Basic .NET and have their own development environment, called the Macros IDE. In Visual Studio .NET, macros are referred to as VSMacros.

Developing macros also provides an excellent way to learn the Visual Studio .NET automation model, which you can then use to develop more complex automation tasks such as add-ins. Macros can be as simple or complex as you want them to be. As you learn more about macros, you'll see that some things aren't possiblewhich is when you must convert your macro to an add-in.

To create macros, the Visual Studio .NET IDE provides you with a macro recorder and the Macros IDE. You use the macro recorder to record the task that you're doing, and you can edit or debug the code generated from the macro in the Macros IDE. For most macros, you won't need to use the Macros IDE at all, but it's there to give you the ability to extend what the recorder has done using the extensibility model in Visual Studio .NET. You can also create macros from scratch using the Macros IDE. After today, you'll realize how simple it is to write macros, and you might split your time between recording a basic macro with the recorder and sprucing it up in the Macros IDE.

When you record a macro, the recorder watches which windows you work in and what tasks you're doing in those windows, and makes a "tape" of your actions. When you finish recording, you can give the macro a friendly name and it's forever added to the Macro Explorer, which provides the same functionality for macros that the Solution Explorer provides for Visual Studio .NET solutions.