Visual Studio 2012 "Smart" Indentation Customization

Question

I am using Visual Studio 2012 and have Smart indentation turned on¹ for C++ files.² I would like to customize Smart indentation's behavior so that it formats the code I enter so that it complies with my company's coding style.

How can I customize all the minute aspects of how Smart indentation behaves?

For example, when I enter this code, Smart indentation formats it exactly like this:

#include <cstdlib>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

struct Foo
{
    const string mA;
    const int mB;
    const string mC;

    Foo(const string& a,
        const int b,
        const string& c)
        :
    mA(a),
        mB(b),
        mC(c)
        {
        }
};

int main()
{
}

Most of this is what I want, except for the colon introducing the initializer list, the first item in the initializer list, and the indentation level of the constructor's body. I want these formatted like this, and I want Visual Studio to do it for me automatically:

Foo(const string& a,
    const int b,
    const string& c)
:
    mA(a),
    mB(b),
    mC(c)
{
}

How can I customize Smart indentation's behavior? I'd prefer to not use any external tools like Visual Assist X.

---

¹: Via Tools > Options > Text Editor > C/C++ > Tabs > Indenting

²: I also have tabstops set to 4, with spaces inserted.

Answer 1

Look into the MS Visual Studio SDK, found here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb139565.aspx

In particular you want to override HandleSmartIndent in the VewFilter class:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.visualstudio.package.viewfilter.handlesmartindent.aspx

This gets called whenever you press the Enter key in the editor. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as just changing some rules in a config dialog.