Quan To's Visual Studio Extensibility blog : Visual Studio Extensibility

Building and publishing a Visual Studio 2010 extension walkthrough

Quan — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 08:50:00 GMT

It's always great to see your General Manager excited about a feature you worked on. It's nice to see him mention it in his blog. It's even better when he sits down and writes an entire blog post about your feature!

I demo'ed the Extension Manager and SDK to Jason Zander (my boss' boss' boss' boss) a few weeks back. He was aware of the feature and showed it at a few of his own demos but saw the end to end demo for the first time during my demo. I'm glad he loved it and although there's still work for us, we're definnitely heading in the right direction.

You can read Jason's blog from here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/jasonz/archive/2009/06/01/visual-studio-2010-sdk-beta-1-is-now-live.aspx

After you've read it, go build your own extension and share it with the world! :)

Visual Studio 2010 SDK Beta 1 installer crashes when I click on "Next"

Quan — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 08:25:00 GMT

I updated our Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 SDK readme a few days ago but I wanted to call this out in case someone else ran into this and needed a workaround.

Problem:

When I try installing Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 SDK, it crashes when I click Next during the setup process.

Reason:

This is a tad embarassing. When we cleaned up our installer from Visual Studio 2008 SDK SP1, we removed some strings related to blocking the SP1 install if the RTM SDK was present. The problem is we didn't remove the check itself. If you have the VS 2008 SDK RTM and then try installing the 2010 Beta 1 SDK, one of our checks fire and then tries to get the help text to tell you to remove the older SDK. Since we removed the string, the resource returned is null and the strng formatter chokes and throws an exception, causing the setup to crash. We've gone ahead and fixed this but unfortunately, it was found after we released the Beta 1 SDK.

Workaround:

The workaround is pretty simple and you have two options.

1) Uninstall the VS 2008 RTM SDK (and update to SP1)

2) Extract the setup exe and launch the MSI directly:

a) Extract the SDK package by typing:

vssdk_full.exe /x

b) Enter a directory to extract the files to

c) Navigate to the directory

d) Launch the .MSI file

Integrated and Isolated Shell for VS 2010 Beta 1

Quan — Thu, 28 May 2009 21:13:00 GMT

We quietly shipped the Visual Studio Integrated and Isolated Shells when Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 was released.

The shells are still work in progress as we made some changes since VS 2008 SP1. Both shells will have all the new goodness that came with VS 2010 including the WPF UI and feature updates to the web components, a brand new MEF based Editor, along with xcopy pkgdef support. Another big change was we moved the shell setup to use the same setup engine as the main VS product.

You can download and try out the shells from here:

Integrated Shell: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ee907896-e8f4-4378-9405-2593ddb38376&displaylang=en

Isolated Shell: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=308b82aa-39f9-456e-b6d7-5d348b6f7015&displaylang=en

To create extensions that work on the shell, you'll need to also get the Visual Studio 2010. (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=147422)

You'll also notice the Shells are a lot bigger than what we shipped in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1. We're carrying both the 3.5 and 4.0 .NET Framework redist packages inside the shells at this time. This will be fixed in Beta 2 as we remove those and replace them with the small web download for the Frameworks which will reduce the shell redist sizes back to the Visual Studio 2008 SP1 levels (120-150 MB).

What is a VSIX?

Quan — Wed, 27 May 2009 00:59:00 GMT

The VSIX file is the unit of deployment for a Visual Studio 2010 Extension. Visual Studio will recognize the VSIX extension and install the contents of the file to the right location.

A VSIX file is a zip file that uses the Open Packaging Convention. You can rename the .VSIX extension to .ZIP and use any zip browser (including the Windows File Explorer) to browse its contents.

A simple VSIX file will contain the following:

[Content_Types].xml	This is required for the OPC APIs to know the contents of the file
extension.vsixmanifest	This is the manifest that describes the extension
Product Payload	This is the actual product binaries and files
Supporting files	This can be icons, images, readme files, the end user license terms, or anything else

During installation, Visual Studio will unzip the contents of the VSIX file into: %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\Extensions\<Company>\<Product>\<Version>

On launch, Visual Studio will look in the Extensions folder and its child folders for extensions and load them. Extensions that are installed by Visual Studio either through the Extension Manager UI, or through the out of process installer launched by double clicking on a VSIX file, will automatically be enabled.

Extensions that are xcopied to that location as a raw folder layout will be disabled by default. They can be enabled via the Extension Manager UI inside of Visual Studio.

To create a basic VSIX file, perform the following:

1) Create a [Content_Types].xml file

2) Create an extension.vsixmanifest file

3) Copy your payload to that location

4) Select all the files

5) Right click

6) Select "Send To"

7) Select "Compressed (zipped) folder"

8) Rename the file extension to .VSIX

Alternatively, you can install the Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 SDK and create an extension. All of our VS Extension project templates will now generate a VSIX for you when you build the extension.

For those wondering what VSIX actually stands for, it really isn't an acronym. Our original intent was to replace VSI (Visual Studio Installer) and with most things, we tacked an "x" on the end. I actually wanted to use the .VSX extension but Visio beat me to it. We tried a bunch of other extensions and eventually decided to use .VSIX. If we really need to cram in an acronym, I guess we can use "Visual Studio Installer for eXtensions".

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 Extensibility Forum

Quan — Fri, 22 May 2009 02:48:00 GMT

If you have any Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 extensibility questions with the Extension Manager, VSIX, pkgdef files, moving extensions to VS 2010, SDK, or anything related to extending Visual Studio, you can post your questions at our Beta 1 Extensibility forum:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vsxprerelease/threads

We will be monitoring the forum during the Beta 1 cycle and will try to respond to your questions, concerns, and comments as soon as possible.

-Quan

Reference Assistant for Visual Studio 2010

Quan — Fri, 22 May 2009 01:27:00 GMT

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the Reference Assistant extension for Visual Studio in my blog. I've been working closely with Darren Stokes to produce a Visual Studio 2010 version. Darren was quickly able to put together a VS 2010 version of his product and has it packaged up as a VSIX file. That means you can now go to the Extension Manager UI in VS 2010 Beta 1 and download Reference Assistant.

You can also get it directly from the VS Gallery from here but I'd suggest finding and downloading it from the Extension Manager instead :)

We have a few more VSIP partners who are getting ready to also ship their extensions online so keep an eye out for that.

First few VS 2010 extensions are now available

Quan — Wed, 20 May 2009 08:30:00 GMT

One of our Editor Developers (Noah Richards) has uploaded the first and second Visual Studio extension on the new Visual Studio Gallery.

The two extensions are a Wiki Classifier that shows .mwiki files in a nice easily readable format inside the VS Editor and a Diff/Patch classifier that handles .diff and .patch files, and also displays them in a easily readable format inside the Editor.

Our Shell PM, Weston Hutchins posted our first downloadable VS Template. It's a VB Card Game Starter Kit (originally built back in VS 2005 and updated to work for VS 2010).

After you install Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1, launch the New Project Dialog, go online and you can try out the Card Game Starter Kit.

If you go to the Extension Manager, you'll also be able to see and download the Card Game starter kit, along with the two classifier extensions.

Expect more extensions to be posted in the coming days from our partners and other Microsoft engineers.

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 is available (for MSDN subscribers)

Quan — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:37:00 GMT

We're live!!! After nearly a year and a half, we've reached another milestone for Visual Studio.

The Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 bits shipped to MSDN this morning. It'll be more broadly available in a few days once the servers are sync'd up but if you have an MSDN subscription, go ahead and download Beta 1 now!

For me, the most exciting thing about Beta 1 will be the Extension Manager and the new Visual Studio Gallery. My team has been working on it for nearly a year now from planning to implementation to testing and it's great to see our feature ship in the product!

In the next few days and weeks, I'll be posting more and more about the extension manager. I'll go into details about our deployment model, the tools provided in the SDK to help you package and build your extensions, and all the cool things you can do with the extension manager.

For now, go download Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 and try it out!

Visual Studio 2010 SDK Beta 1 Readme

Quan — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:18:00 GMT

Visual Studio 2010 SDK Beta 1 Supplemental Readme

The Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 Documentation is available here.

The DSL Tools for Beta 1 is available here.

This posting contains additional readme and known issues about the Visual Studio 2010 SDK Beta 1 release. These are in addition to the known issues that were included in the installation of the Visual Studio 2010 SDK Beta 1.

ISSUE: Debugging my extension in the experimental instance takes a long time

WORKAROUND: To workaround the issue, disable the Historical Debugger by going to the Tools menu, select Options, and then select Historical Debugger

ISSUE: Using a unicode character in the project name of a Visual Studio Extension causes the deployment of the extension to fail.

WORKAROUND: This is a known issue which will be fixed for the next Visual Studio 2010 public release. The workaround is to not use a unicode character in the project name.

ISSUE: The Isolated Shell Project does not work with Editor extension projects.

WORKAROUND: This is a known issue which will be fixed for the next Visual Studio 2010 public release. The workaround is to build the extensions separately and drop the extension with the extension.vsixmanifest file in the %ShellFolder%\Extensions folder for the Isolated Shell to pick it up on launch.

ISSUE: When adding a reference to Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.10.0.Interop.dll, I get build errors.

WORKAROUND: This is a known issue which will be fixed for the next Visual Studio 2010 public release. The workaround is to set the property "Embed Interop Types" of the reference to "false".

ISSUE: When migrating a Visual Studio 2008 project to Visual Studio 2010 and adding a reference to Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.dll, Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.9.0.dll, Microsoft.VisualStudio.Package.LanguageService.dll, or Microsoft.VisualStudio.Package.LanguageService.9.0.dll, I still get build errors.

WORKAROUND: This is a known issue which will be fixed for the next Visual Studio 2010 SDK public release. The problem occurs because the reference assemblies in the SDK for these binaries inadvertently had their assembly version changed from 2.0 to 10.0.

To workaround this issue, follow these steps:

1) Navigate to your GAC location under <RootDrive>\Windows\Assembly\GAC_MSIL and find Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.dll, Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.9.0.dll, Microsoft.VisualStudio.Package.LanguageService.dll, and Microsoft.VisualStudio.Package.LanguageService.9.0.dll (assembly version 2.0)

2) Copy the assemblies to %VSSDKInstallDir%\VisualStudioIntegration\Common\Assemblies

3) Inside your project, use the Add References dialog and add a reference to the assemblies you copied over (if necessary)

4) Build your project.

ISSUE: When migrating a Visual Studio 2008 package to Visual Studio 2010, the package is not loaded.

WORKAROUND: You need to add a extension.vsixmanifest file to your project. To do so, you can get one from a new Visual Studio 2010 package project and adjust it for your own package.

ISSUE: After installing an extension, the extension doesn't get loaded.

WORKAROUND: Ensure extensions can be loaded from your %LocalAppData% directory. If you're an administrator on the machine, go to Tools/Options, select Extension Manager and check "Load extensions from my Local Applicaton Data folder"

ISSUE: The Visual Studio 2010 SDK Beta 1 install fails after clicking the "Next" Button

WORKAROUND: There are two potential work arounds.

Uninstall the Visual Studio 2008 SDK

1) Extract the SDK package by typing:

vssdk_full.exe /x

2) Enter a directory to extract the files to

3) Navigate to the directory

4) Launch the .MSI file

VSX Conference is next week!

Quan — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:37:00 GMT

It's been pretty exciting around here as we're getting ready to host our first public VSX conference. Next week will be full of partner activities starting with a two day VSX conference open to the public, followed by two days for VSIP partners, and one final day for our VSIP dev clinics which allow our premier partners 1:1 time with developers from the technologies that they're interested in.

For those on the fence thinking if they should attend, check out Ken Levy's top ten reasons why you should come: http://mashupx.com/blog/2008/09/08/10-reasons-to-attend-vsx-devcon-2008/

Registration is still open at http://msdn.com/vsx/conference so if you're in the Pacific Northwest next week and want to join us, register as soon as possible.

Hope to see you there!