Josh Heitzman's Blog

Moving on to the Code Essentials Team

MSDNArchive — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 02:47:00 GMT

This is a bit late in coming, but at the beginning of August I moved from the Ecosystem VS SDK team to the Code Essentials team. The Code Essentials team is the name for the combined Project and Solution, Editor and Navigation, and Source Control Integration teams. The decision to make this move was motivated by the changing direction of the VS SDK team that would have resulted less opportunity for me to write new C++ code future. I should still hopefully continue to make some contributions to the VS SDK in the form of additions to VSL resulting from the refactoring of code owned by the Code Essentials team, but the VS SDK is no longer my primary focus.

For the last three months, I have spent most of my time working with other folks here in the Developer Division to determine how to account for the impact Windows Vista's addition of User Access Control on deveoloper scenarios provided by Visual Studio and implementation of the Visual Studio product itself. More on that later...

VS Extensibility Explorer Powertoy, sample, and VSL gets hierarchy impl classes

MSDNArchive — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 23:40:00 GMT

The VS SDK 2006-08 CTP will include a new Powertoy called the Extensibility Explorer. The Extensiblity Explorer displays that Visual Studio 2005 registry hives (i.e. 8.0 for the regular hive and 8.0Exp for the experimental hive) and all of the packages registered under each hive. Additionally, under each package are displayed the global services, tool windows, editors, projects registered to that package. The properties displayed in the properties window for the selected package indicate whether the package is loaded or not. The properties for the tool windows indicate whether the tool window is active and whether it is visible.

The VS SDK 2006-08 CTP will also include the source for the Extensibility Explorer as the C++ Extensibility Explorer Reference Sample demonstracting the use of VSL's new VS hierarchy classes.

The new VSL classes are:

IVsHierarchyImpl
IVsUIHierarchyImpl
IVsHierarchyEventsDelegate
VsHierarchyRootItemBase
VsHierarchyItemBase
VsUIHierarchyItemBase
VsHierarchyRootItemBase
HierarchyNode

VS Package Wizard updated in next CTP

MSDNArchive — Wed, 24 May 2006 01:50:00 GMT

The Visual Studio Package wizard that is part of the VS SDK has been updated for the VS SDK 2006-06 CTP. The update includes:

The generated editors now match up to the new Single View Editor reference samples for both C++ and C#.
The code generated for C++ has been cleaned up so that it matches the standards of the reference samples.

Enjoy!

Integrating an SDK into Visual Studio 2005

MSDNArchive — Tue, 23 May 2006 23:01:00 GMT

The VS SDK 2006-06 CTP will include a new sample that demonstrates integrating a SDK into VS (i.e. it's a sample SDK). Thw sample SDK will:

Show how to use a property sheet provide to configure a VC project to be aware of a SDK.

Show the use of the Help Integration Wizard to create a MSM from a .HSX produced by Help Studio Lite.

Show how to register an assembly so that is list in that they are listed in the “.Net” tab of the “Add Reference” dialog

Show an example of how to organize the file structure of a SDK.

Show how to generate a .Net Primary Interop Assembly for a COM Dll.

Show how to generate a COM type library for a .Net Assembly.

VSL Deep Dive Slidedeck

MSDNArchive — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 03:15:00 GMT

Attached to this post is the slidedeck from the VSL Deep Dive presentation I did last Monday at the April VSIP Dev Lab here in Redmond.

Sample Code Size Comparison (part 2): C++ vs. C#

MSDNArchive — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 01:07:00 GMT

Sample Code Size Comparison (part 2): C++ vs. C#

Follows is the data I previously posted here, with the addition of the new Single View Editor Reference samples:

	Code Lines	Comment Lines	Characters	Semi-colons	Functions
Feature equivalent
C++ Tool Window	828	508	53,858	228	34
C# Tool Window	844	724	63,686	433	49
C++ Menus & Commands	178	222	18,996	38	11
C# Menus & Commands	227	201	20,498	90	10
C++ Services	315	320	28,230	78	15
C# Services	270	289	26,773	101	13
C++ Single View Editor	2,653	1,203	130,689	879	142
C# Single View Editor	3,253	1,620	251,990	1,147	276
Not feature equivalent
C++ Package	81	201	13,648	7	3
C# Package	204	261	22,284	72	17

Again the flexibility that VSL offers by being distributed as C++ header files, allows it to be added to and changed as needed, where as the MPF binaries are frozen along with the Visual Studio Platform binaries. Another factor is the ability to use multiple inheritance to inherit the implementation for many of the necessary editor interfaces (22 interfaces excluding IUknown, IDispatch, and IConnectionPointContainer).

Sample Code Size Comparison: C++ vs. C#

MSDNArchive — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 05:39:00 GMT

Follows is data I just pulled from the completed reference samples in the VS SDK:

	Code Lines	Comment Lines	Characters	Semi-colons	Functions
Feature equivalent
C++ Tool Window	828	508	53,858	228	34
C# Tool Window	844	724	63,686	433	49
C++ Menus and Commands	178	222	18,996	38	11
C# Menus and Commands	227	201	20,498	90	10
C++ Services	315	320	28,230	78	15
C# Services	270	289	26,773	101	13
Not feature equivalent
C++ Package	81	201	13,648	7	3
C# Package	204	261	22,284	72	17

The C++ and C# Package samples are included just for completeness as they not feature equivalent, because the C# Package sample has multiple implementations of packages, where as the C++ Package sample only has one that has all features of the different C# examples.

The likely reason why the C++ Tool Window and C++ Menus and Commands samples are smaller then the C# equivalents are due to the guiding principles of VSL, which allows for VSL e added to and changed as needed to faciliate re-use. Thus, anything that looked re-useable in the C++ samples was pushed up into VSL, where as in the C# samples there is code that could possibly be pushed into an assembly for re-use.

That said, personally I think that C++ templates, multiple inheritance, and the C pre-processor provide an advantage over C# when it comes to re-using code, and that much of the purported productivity gain of C# (and Java) over C++ has more to do with the available APIs rather then language differences, in that the .Net Framework is simply a cleaner API to code to then the raw Win32 API's; however, that difference lessens when comparing the C++ libararies (ATL, WTL, C++ Standard Library, and MFC) to the .Net Framework. I think the same is also true when comparing VSL to the MPF although their feature sets are somewhat divergent currently since VSL has no project support and MPF has no editor support. To that end I may look into writing a C++/CLI project sample that utilizes MPF support where it exists for projects now, rather then providing direct support in VSL (which will be some number of months worth of work), but I'm not sure how well that will work out since C++/CLI doesn't support multiple inheritance, so the class inheriting from the MPF Project class will only be able to inherit from that one class.

Visual Studio Library (aka VSL): Guiding Principles

MSDNArchive — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 23:46:00 GMT

The design of VSL is guided by the following principles: - Minimize coupling - Avoid feature creep - Exploit the C++ language and the Visual C++ compiler - Facilitate unit testing - Re-use without obstruction - Responsive to requests ...(read more)

Visual Studio Library (aka VSL): What it is

MSDNArchive — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 06:46:00 GMT

The Visual Studio Library is a C++ source code library whose purpose is to simplify creating a Visual Studio Integration Package....(read more)

Visual Studio Library aka VSL

MSDNArchive — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 00:13:00 GMT

As I sit here repeatedly waiting for the unit test for the C++ Single View Editor (the new scrubbed version of BscEdt) to build, I looked back through my blog posts after I joined the VS SDK team last July, and noticed that I've that I haven’t really blogged about Visual Studio Library (aka VSL) very much. My blog posts including mention of VSL can be summarized as follows:

12/5/2005 – breaking changes primarily to the unit testing infrastructure.
11/2/2005 – link to the official VSL feedback and suggestions thread on the VS Extensibility forum.
9/13/2005 – note about VSL documentation status.
8/12/2005 – one sentence about three classes VSL provides.

That is not a very impressive amount of content. Looking at the official VSL feedback and suggestions thread I posted on the VS Extensibility forum, I see all I said about what VSL is useful for is:

“VSL is a C++ source library, primarily targeting the Visual Studio Platform, which extends the Active Template Library (ATL).”

Not very descriptive at all.

The official help docs on VSL are also pretty light on content, and the work item to add more comments to VSL keeps getting postponed.

Net result: communication from us regarding VSL is crap.

I’ll start what will hopefully become a long series of blog posts on VSL today.

VS SDK 2005-12 CTP Now Available!

MSDNArchive — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 21:03:00 GMT

The Visual Studio Platform SDK 2005-12 Community Technical Preview is now available here. Wit this release VSL has been expanded to include mock interfaces for nearly all Visual Studio Platform interfaces. Numerous improvements have been made to the VSL infrastructure for mock objects as well. For more details on the new VSL mock interfaces see my blog post on it yesterday.

VS SDK 2005-12 CTP: includes C++ mock interfaces for Visual Studio Platform interfaces

MSDNArchive — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 01:30:00 GMT

The December CTP of the VS SDK, which has not yet available for downloading as of this posting, includes mock interfaces for nearly all Visual Studio Platform interfaces, as well as numerous changes to the VSL infrastructure for mock objects. The changes to the VSL infrastructure where necessitated in part by the development of the mock interfaces, and in part to make ease the utilization of the mock interfaces in unit tests. If you have any comments or suggestions regarding VSL , please post them on the official VSL feedback thread.

The breaking changes are:

The class MockBase is no longer a template class.
The static method MockBase::SetUnitTestBase(const UnitTestBase& rUnitTestBase) was removed. The static method UnitTestBase::SetUnitTestBase(const UnitTestBase& rUnitTestBase) should be utilized instead.
The static method MockBase::GetCurrentUnitTestBase() was removed. The static method UnitTestBase::GetCurrentUnitTestBase() should be utilized instead.
The static method MockBase::CheckValidString(const wchar_t * const pszValid, const wchar_t * const pszParam) was renamed to CheckValidStringW (and CheckValidStringA was added as well).
The static method MockBase::CheckValidPointer now has two template arguments instead of one. This is only breaking if the argument is explicitly specified, which is unnecessary, as the compiler can infer the template argument from what is passed into the method.
The macro VSL_DECLARE_VALIDVALUES(type) was removed. The macros VSL_DEFINE_MOCK_METHOD_NOARGS_NORETURN(methodName), VSL_DEFINE_MOCK_METHOD(methodName), and VSL_DEFINE_MOCK_METHOD_NOARGS(methodName) should be utilized instead.
The macro VSL_CHECK_VALIDSTRING was renamed VSL_CHECK_VALIDVALUE_STRING.
The macro VSL_CHECK_VALIDPOINTER was renamed VSL_CHECK_VALIDPOINTER.
The macro VSL_RETURN_VALIDVALUES_HR() was removed. The macro VSL_RETURN_VALIDVALUES() should be utilized instead.
The class IVsShellFixedVSPropertySet was removed. IVsShellMockImpl should be utilized instead.

The samples VisualStudioIntegration\Samples\IDE\CPP\Reference.MenuAndCommands and VisualStudioIntegration\Samples\IDE\CPP\Reference.Services provide examples of unit tests, which are complete, and make use of the new mock interfaces and the new macros that ease the use of the new mock interfaces.

The sample VisualStudioIntegration\Samples\IDE\CPP\Reference.ToolWindow\UnitTest has more complex unit testing needs then other two samples, and some of this illustrated currently, but the unit test is not yet complete.

VS SDK 2005-10 RTM Now Available!

MSDNArchive — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 22:03:00 GMT

Visual Studio SDK 2005-10 RTM is now available for download at http://affiliate.vsipmembers.com/affiliate/downloadFiles.aspx. This the correct version of the VS SDK to utilize with Visual Studio 2005 RTM.

I have also posted a forum topic Official VSL feedback and suggestions thread on the Visual Studio Extensibility forum. I would encourage any C++ developer's targeting the Visual Studio Platform to make use of this thread.

No VS SDK 2005-10 CTP

MSDNArchive — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 01:41:00 GMT

In my last post, I said a we should be releasing the VS SDK 2005-10 CTP shortly. We will not be releasing the VS SDK 2005-10 CTP externally, as we just realized that recent changes in files that we pick-up from Visual Studio 2005, have changed such that they will not be compatible with the last RC of VS, so the VS SDK 2005-10 CTP will only worth with the RTM of Visual Studio 2005, and since we are planning to sim ship the SDK with that, there is no value in a VS SDK 2005-10 CTP.

VS SDK September sprint nearly complete

MSDNArchive — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 06:37:00 GMT

We have nearly completed our September sprint (yes, it's October and we are not done yet, we started out extermely overbooked for the month sprint, and even after extensive cutting, never got caught up). Once complete we will release the VS SDK 2005-10 CTP, which will effectively be the RC for the first official release of the new VS SDK (as opposed to the VSIP SDK), which should be released later this month. If we don't find any ship stopper after the CTP is released and none are reported by you, the community, the content in the official release will be the same as the content in the CTP.

The unit tests for the C++ Tool Window reference sample were not finished in entirety, and a number of new things added to VSL were also not unit tested. We also did not do the architecture diagrams done for the C++ reference samples. Nor did we get strings for extended error information added to VSL (although they have been added to the reference samples). All of these things were cut (and we are still late). The C++ Tool Window sample proved to far more costly then anticipated. The C++ Services and Tool Window reference samples are only trivially documented, and only a fraction of VSL is documented. Adding more verbose comments to VSL was also cut for this sprint.

VS SDK 2005 CTP compatiablity with VS 2005 RC

MSDNArchive — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 02:54:00 GMT

The Visual Studio SDK 2005 September (2005-09) Community Tech Preview is compatible* with the Visual Studio 2005 Release Candidate.

The VS SDK 2005-09 CTP can be downloaded from http://www.vsipdev.com/downloads/vsseptemberctp.aspx.

* - Note that we did not do as an exhaustive test pass with that combination as we did with the VS SDK 2005-09 CTP and the Visual Studio 2005 August CTP, so there could be some minor issues that we are not aware of.

VS SDK C++ Reference Sample Progress and VSL Docs

MSDNArchive — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 22:23:00 GMT

The C++ Services Reference Sample is nearly complete, with scenario testing, adhoc testing, a few unit tests, and some additional comments still being needed.

I'm going to swap back to the C++ Tool Window Reference Sample and see about getting the persisted tool window portion of the sample straightened out so that the list view properly supports accessibility and in turn scenario automation.

I also just met with UE about getting VSL documented. Apparently the creation of our reference docs is all automated now; however, that automation relies on reflection, which obviously doesn't work for a C++ template library with no typelib to generate an interop-assembly from. The hope is that the tool used to automate the the creation of the 'new' (5 years ago) reference topics for the Standard C++ Library are still around, but if it's not there may be some manual topic creation, or it may not get done until one of our absent UE folks with relevant automation experience get's back.

I just sent them following list of VSL classes I felt critically needed to be documented by whatever means necessary:

CommandId
CommandHandlerBase
IOleCommandTargetImpl
VsSiteCache
IVsPackageImpl

Please, leave feedback if you feel that a particular class not on that list is critical need immediate documenting, based on your review of VSL and the C++ Reference Samples in one of our recent CTP releases.

VS SDK 2005-09 CTP Now Available

MSDNArchive — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 10:54:00 GMT

The Visual Stuido SDK 2005-09 Community Tech Preview is now available at http://www.vsipdev.com/downloads/. This VS SDK CTP is compatible with the Visual Studio 2005 August CTP (but not Beta 2).

Enjoy!

VS SDK 2005-09 CTP Finished!

MSDNArchive — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 03:58:00 GMT

The VS SDK 2005-09 CTP is finished, and has been forwarded so that it can be posted to the web. No ETA on when it will be posted yet though.

We also had our August sprint review today, and we will be doing our September sprint planning tomorrow.

VS SDK 2005-09 sprint almost complete

MSDNArchive — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 23:44:00 GMT

At the moment, we are in the process of doing our final testing on the VS SDK 2005-09 Community Tech Preview. This is the last task for our August sprint, and our sprint review is tomorrow, planning for the next sprint will occur on Thursday, and the next sprint will begin on Friday.

We were not able to complete the C++ Tool Window Reference Sample, but we are including it in the release to provide a preview, as most of the functionality is present. However, the actual code for this sample is prototype code, and should not be copied. We are going to need to replace the use of the VB ListView ActiveX control with something else, as it was just discovered that it does not fully support Active Accessiblity (i.e. it can access the control and the column header for the report view, but not the list items), so that part of the sample will need to be re-written. The ISelectionContainer implementation is also extermely rough and needs to be partially factored up into VSL as one or more re-usable classes.

The C++ Package Reference Samples and the C++ Menus and Commands Reference Samples are in good shape though, and we'll also provide the C++ Service Provider Reference Sample with the VS SDK 2005-10 CTP, as well as completing the C++ Tool Window Reference Sample.

VSL and C++ Reference Sample Progress

MSDNArchive — Fri, 12 Aug 2005 21:50:00 GMT

The C++ Package and Menu and Commands Reference Samples have been coded, and scenario test development is in progress for those samples. The Visual Studio Library aka VSL now provides IVsPackageImpl, IVsInstalledProductImpl, and IOleCommandTargetImpl.

Work on the C++ Tool Window Reference Sample has begun, and the development of that sample will further expand VSL.

New and improved VS SDK download page

MSDNArchive — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 20:45:00 GMT

The VS SDK download page has been redesigned to better communicate the differences between the various released of the VS SDK (i.e. the old VSIP SDK vs the new VS SDK, a Community Tech Preview (CTP) vs. an official release, etc) and provide increased transparency by publishing our sprint backlog and the monthly sprint review.

By the way, this redesign was why it took several days to get the 2005-08 CTP posted.

VS SDK 2005-08 Released!

MSDNArchive — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 18:41:00 GMT

The Visual Studio SDK 2005-08 Community Tech Preview was just released to the web for your integration pleasure.

Follows is the readme included with the VS SDK 2005-08 Community Tech Preview:

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 SDK Readme

What’s New

The SDK is undergoing a complete reorganization. As part of that reorganization, monthly SDK previews ( CTP quality ) are being provided to the community.

The Aug 2005 Preview Release of the VS 2005 SDK targets VS 2005 Beta2.

This drop includes:

A new folder structure is in place. SDK releases will be hosted in a parent folder. One Help folder will be contained in that parent folder, as well as multiple release-specific folders named yyyy-mm to correspond the folder to a specific drop of the SDK. This folder structure reflects the final organization.

All VSIP SDK content is provided in an Unsupported folder. The SDK team will be updating samples in the Unsupported folder and moving them to the Samples folder over time.

In the Samples folder are:
   2 New Complete Managed Samples
      Package
      Menu/Commands
   1 New Partial Native Sample
      Package
   The new samples use a style and reach a quality level that all new samples will be authored to.

Updated documentation, that matches the new layout and samples, is in-progress. The current documentation is a direct copy of the VSIP SDK documentation and references the VSIP SDK layout.

One difference between the old VSIP SDK and the new VS SDK is that the assemblies installed for design time reference are stub assemblies without implementation. These assemblies have all the types and methods defined in the one used at runtime, so that the design time experience is in no way affected. This does mean it is no more possible to use them to run actual code. The reason why we decided to make this change is that we don't want to have multiple copies of our assemblies on the customer machine because this will make servicing them difficult or impossible; and this way it is not possible that a customer will include these assemblies in a installation package by mistake; making the servicing problem bigger.

Known Issues

Setup does not properly replace Help and Wizards in the “reverting to previous” SDK scenario.
Setup will fail if the installation path is customized to path with more then 128 characters excluding the drive letter and the slashes (we realize it is ironic to put this information in a file that is installed by setup, but at least know you know that we know about the problem you have already workaround).
Help Workshop does not load, Help Workshop Projects cannot be authored in this release.
Documentation contains references to VSIP SDK layout which are no longer correct.
C# samples may hit a continuable (ignorable) exception "NoCurrentProjectException". This is a known issue with Visual Studio 2005 Beta2 and has been fixed. When the VS SDK is updated to target post-Beta2 builds this issue will no longer exist.

Q&A availability of VS SDK matching PDC VS bits

MSDNArchive — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 04:59:00 GMT

The following question was posted by Marc: "Do you have any plans regarding the PDC? As I understand it, we'll get the (latest) VS2k5 bits at PDC -- will we have an matching SDK? ".

The answer to question #1 is that we are sending some folks to speak at PDC about Visual Studio as a Platform (Visual Studio Extensibility, Visual Studio SDK, etc.), and certain folks on the team are busy working on PDC content even now.

The answer to question #2 is that we don't know for certain, as exactly which build of VS will be available has not yet been determined. Hopefully be able to post a recent compatible VS SDK to the web; however, there is some possibility we will need to post a legacy VSIP SDK rather then recent VS SDK, and there is a very, very slim chance that we won't be able to get any SDK up at all. More to follow when we know more.

Yes, we are aware it's lame we don't have a better answer, and hopefully we can get all of our ducks in a row here in the Developer Division regarding intermediate builds of Orcas (code name for the next version of VS to follow VS 2005).

VS SDK 2005-09 Sprint Planning Complete

MSDNArchive — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 03:27:00 GMT

Today we completed the planning for our August sprint, which translates to the VS SDK 2005-09 potential release, since we name the release after the month it will be available in rather the month it was developed in. Barring any scheduling errors, unforeseen fires, or gross under-estimations, we are expecting to complete 5 additional reference samples this month, which will mean doing the work for 4.5 this month versus 2.5 last month (the C++ Package reference sample was not completed last month as the VSL work was not completed due to some unforeseen fires)! We had more development time available on the schedule this month due to having two new members added to the team, the expectation of fewer distractions, and we are attempting to get agile in our testing and bug fixing, which meant scheduling only 1 day for the final test pass and bug fixing, instead of four days as we did last month.

We also moved from working against Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 branch to working against the Visual Studio 2005 RTM branch, since churn is dramatically lower in VS at this stage in the development cycle, one or more RCs will be released in the not to distant future, and we want to be able to release SDKs for these one or more of those RCs (but no necessarily all).

The VS SDK 2005-08 has not yet been posted, so hopefully it will be tomorrow.