Visual Studio 2010 Plug-in - Adding a context-menu to the Solution Explorer

Question

I want to add a new option in Visual Studio 2010's solution explorer's context menu for a specific file type. So for example, right clicking on a *.cs file will show the existing context menu plus "my new option".

I'm wondering what the code would look like; and would love a pointer to a good reference for developing visual studio plug-ins. The tutorials/references I'm seeing are conspicuously horrid.

Thanks!

Answer 1

It took me about 5 hours to do this.

There are 2 options, Visual studio Add-in (or shared Add-in) vs Visual studio package.

The package is far more complicated to give you far more control, but for a context menu on the solution explorer it is not needed.

So new project-> Other Project Types -> Extensibility -> Visual Studio Add-in.

Here's a walk-through - Link

Also This one I followed some - Link

I recommend you leave on the option for add to tools menu until you have the context menu working, or to provide a place to put a settings dialog (if you don't write a Tool-> options page.

Here's the connection code:

  _applicationObject = (DTE2)application;
        _addInInstance = (AddIn)addInInst;
        if (connectMode == ext_ConnectMode.ext_cm_UISetup)
        {
            object[] contextGUIDS = new object[] { };
            Commands2 commands = (Commands2)_applicationObject.Commands;
            string toolsMenuName = "Tools";

            //Place the command on the tools menu.
            //Find the MenuBar command bar, which is the top-level command bar holding all the main menu items:
            Microsoft.VisualStudio.CommandBars.CommandBar menuBarCommandBar = ((Microsoft.VisualStudio.CommandBars.CommandBars)_applicationObject.CommandBars)["MenuBar"];

            //Find the Tools command bar on the MenuBar command bar:
            CommandBarControl toolsControl = menuBarCommandBar.Controls[toolsMenuName];
            CommandBarPopup toolsPopup = (CommandBarPopup)toolsControl;
            // get popUp command bars where commands will be registered.
            CommandBars cmdBars = (CommandBars)(_applicationObject.CommandBars);
            CommandBar vsBarItem = cmdBars["Item"]; //the pop up for clicking a project Item
            CommandBar vsBarWebItem = cmdBars["Web Item"];
            CommandBar vsBarMultiItem = cmdBars["Cross Project Multi Item"];
            CommandBar vsBarFolder = cmdBars["Folder"];
            CommandBar vsBarWebFolder = cmdBars["Web Folder"];
            CommandBar vsBarProject = cmdBars["Project"]; //the popUpMenu for right clicking a project
            CommandBar vsBarProjectNode = cmdBars["Project Node"];

            //This try/catch block can be duplicated if you wish to add multiple commands to be handled by your Add-in,
            //  just make sure you also update the QueryStatus/Exec method to include the new command names.
            try
            {
                //Add a command to the Commands collection:
                Command command = commands.AddNamedCommand2(_addInInstance, "HintPaths", "HintPaths", "Executes the command for HintPaths", true, 59, ref contextGUIDS, (int)vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusSupported + (int)vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusEnabled, (int)vsCommandStyle.vsCommandStylePictAndText, vsCommandControlType.vsCommandControlTypeButton);

                //Add a control for the command to the tools menu:
                if ((command != null) && (toolsPopup != null))
                {
                    //command.AddControl(toolsPopup.CommandBar, 1);
                    command.AddControl(vsBarProject); 
                }
            }
            catch (System.ArgumentException argEx)
            {
                System.Diagnostics.Debug.Write("Exception in HintPaths:" + argEx.ToString());
                //If we are here, then the exception is probably because a command with that name
                //  already exists. If so there is no need to recreate the command and we can 
                //  safely ignore the exception.
            }
        }
    }

This code checks to see if what the user has selected is a project for instance:

  private Project GetProject()
    {
        if (_applicationObject.Solution == null || _applicationObject.Solution.Projects == null || _applicationObject.Solution.Projects.Count < 1)
            return null;
        if (_applicationObject.SelectedItems.Count == 1 && _applicationObject.SelectedItems.Item(1).Project != null)
            return _applicationObject.SelectedItems.Item(1).Project;
        return null;
    }

Note that certain string names in your code have to match up and I'm not sure which ones they are quite yet as I just did this yesterday.

Answer 2

I found that the best way to go was to make a Visual Studio Package instead of an Visual Studio Add-in. The vsix deployment experience is so slick - the whole thing was a really easy experience. It only supports Visual Studio 2010, but that was good enough in my case.

Here is the resulting vsct:

<Commands package="guidBingfooPluginPkg">
    <Groups>
      <Group guid="guidBingfooPluginCmdSet" id="MyMenuGroup" priority="0x0600">
        <Parent guid="guidSHLMainMenu" id="IDM_VS_CTXT_ITEMNODE"/>
      </Group>
    </Groups>

    <Buttons>
      <Button guid="guidBingfooPluginCmdSet" id="cmdidfooLocalBox" priority="0x0100" type="Button">
        <Parent guid="guidBingfooPluginCmdSet" id="MyMenuGroup" />
        <!-- <Icon guid="guidImages" id="bmpPic1" /> -->
        <CommandFlag>DynamicVisibility</CommandFlag>
        <Strings>
          <CommandName>cmdidfooLocalBox</CommandName>
          <ButtonText>View in foo</ButtonText>
        </Strings>
      </Button>

      <Button guid="guidBingfooPluginCmdSet" id="cmdidfooTestBed" priority="0x0100" type="Button">
        <Parent guid="guidBingfooPluginCmdSet" id="MyMenuGroup" />
        <CommandFlag>DynamicVisibility</CommandFlag>
        <Strings>
          <CommandName>cmdidfooTestBed</CommandName>
          <ButtonText>View in foo on Test Beds</ButtonText>
        </Strings>
      </Button>

    </Buttons>

    <Bitmaps>
      <Bitmap guid="guidImages" href="Resources\Images_32bit.bmp" usedList="bmpPic1, bmpPic2, bmpPicSearch, bmpPicX, bmpPicArrows"/>
    </Bitmaps>
  </Commands>

  <Symbols>
    <GuidSymbol name="guidBingfooPluginPkg" value="{62c4a13c-cc61-44a0-9e47-33111bd323ce}" />

    <GuidSymbol name="guidBingfooPluginCmdSet" value="{59166210-d88c-4259-9809-418bc332b0ab}">
      <IDSymbol name="MyMenuGroup" value="0x1020" />
      <IDSymbol name="cmdidfooLocalBox" value="0x0100" />
      <IDSymbol name="cmdidfooTestBed" value="0x0101" />
    </GuidSymbol>

    <GuidSymbol name="guidImages" value="{2dff8307-a49a-4951-a236-82e047385960}" >
      <IDSymbol name="bmpPic1" value="1" />
      <IDSymbol name="bmpPic2" value="2" />
      <IDSymbol name="bmpPicSearch" value="3" />
      <IDSymbol name="bmpPicX" value="4" />
      <IDSymbol name="bmpPicArrows" value="5" />
    </GuidSymbol>
  </Symbols>
</CommandTable>

Answer 3

UPDATE:

GAX/GAT for VS2010 also available from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff687173

ORIGINAL POST

Well is horrid because VS is really complex. Using GAX/GAT was possible, but there's no VS2010 Version yet. What I suggest is downloading some samples from the Visual Studio Gallery to try to understand how the whole thing works, sadly not an easy task.

HTH

Answer 4

I found myself having to add an item to the code editor window context menu, which ended up being cmdBars["Script Context"] as I was wanting it specifically for JavaScript files.

As a technique for finding this which I felt useful sharing, I added the new menu item to all (456) menu controls in visual studio with the following loop:

foreach (CommandBar cc in cmdBars)
{
    if (cc.Index >= 1 && cc.Index <= 456)
    {
        command.AddControl(cmdBars[cc.NameLocal]);
    }
}

I then narrowed this using a divide and conquer technique by adjusting the bounds of the loop:

    if (cc.Index >= 1 && cc.Index <= 256)
    ...
    if (cc.Index >= 1 && cc.Index <= 128)
    ...
    if (cc.Index >= 64 && cc.Index <= 128)
    ...etc...

Until I eventually found what I was looking for.

(The related question for this is at Visual Studio 2010 Plug-in - Adding a context-menu to the Editor Window)