Visual Studio SDK Tips and Tricks

Extensibility in Visual Studio is a bit like science and technology-there is always more to learn and discover even for the experts. In this article, I’ll present a few tips and tricks you may find helpful when creating packages with the Visual Studio SDK.

Hi, I’m Dr. eX, your Visual Studio Extensibility expert! This article presents tips and tricks for enhancing your development with the Visual Studio SDK. I’ll present some new scenarios and productivity techniques for creating packages. Let’s jump right in to some of my notes from my technical laboratory.

Top 10 Help Topics for the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SDK

For starters, let me show you how to find ten of the most popular VSX Help topics. I’ll list the topics first and then I’ll show you how to find them.

1. "Getting Started with the Visual Studio SDK" (Visual Studio SDK > Getting Started)
2. "Visual Studio Integration Guided Tour" (Visual Studio SDK > Getting Started > Guided Tour)
3. "Visual Studio Integration Samples" (Visual Studio SDK > Visual Studio Development Environment SDK > Samples)
4. "Introduction to the Visual Studio Development Environment SDK" (Visual Studio SDK > Visual Studio Development Environment SDK > Getting Started > Introduction)
5. "Visual Studio Development Environment Model" (Visual Studio SDK > Visual Studio Development Environment SDK > Architecture > Concepts > Visual Studio Development Environment Model)
6. "Migrating VSPackages to Visual Studio 2008" (Visual Studio SDK > Visual Studio Development Environment SDK > Getting Started > Migrating VSPackages to Visual Studio 2008)
7. "Running Visual Studio and the Visual Studio SDK Under Windows Vista" (Visual Studio SDK > Visual Studio Development Environment SDK > Getting Started > Running Under Windows Vista)
8. "User Interface Essentials" (Visual Studio SDK > Visual Studio Development Environment SDK > User Interfaces > Essentials)
9. "Project Type Essentials" (Visual Studio SDK > Visual Studio Development Environment SDK > Projects and Solutions > Projects > Project Types > Essentials)
10. "Visual Studio 2008 Shell" (Visual Studio SDK > Visual Studio Development Environment SDK > Visual Studio 2008 Shell)

To access the above Help topics, do one of the following:

• With the Visual Studio 2008 SDK installed, on the Start menu, point to All Programs, click Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SDK, and click Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 SDK Documentation. In the Contents pane, expand the folders listed in the order above, and then click the topic.
• From a Web browser, go to http://msdn2.microsoft.com, and click the Library tab at the top of the page. In the Contents pane, expand MSDN Library, expand Development Tools and Languages, expand Visual Studio 2008, and then expand Visual Studio. Now as you refer to the topics in the list above, expand the folders for the topic that interests you and then click the topic.

Tips and Tricks for the Microsoft Visual Studio SDK

Online/Offline Help

To switch between the offline (in the product) and online (on the MSDN Web site) versions of the Visual Studio SDK documentation, do the following:

1. With Microsoft Document Explorer open, on the Tools menu, click Options. Expand Help, and click Online.
2. In the When loading Help content area, do one of the following:                                             a. Click the Try online first, then local option to view the online version of the documentation.                                                b. Click the Try local only, not online to view the offline version of the documentation.
3. Quit and restart Document Explorer for the changes to take effect.

Finding Keywords in Code Examples

To interact with an index of the code files included in the Visual Studio SDK, do one of the following:

• From a Web browser, go to http://www.koders.com.

1. In the Licenses list, select MSVSSDK.
2. In the Search box, type a keyword to search for, such as IVsPackage, and then click Search.
3. A list of code files containing that keyword will appear.

• From a Web browser, go to http://www.krugle.com.

1. In the Project box, type Visual Studio SDK.
2. In the Search box, type a keyword to search for, such as IVsPackage, and click Search.
3. A list of code files containing that keyword will appear.

VS SDK Documentation Feedback

To provide feedback to Microsoft about the Visual Studio SDK documentation, do one of the following:

1. Send an e-mail to vssdkfbk@microsoft.com with the feedback included.
2. From the online version of the documentation, with any Help topic displayed, click Community Content, and follow the on-screen directions to submit your feedback to Microsoft.
3. From the offline version of the documentation, with any Help topic displayed, click the feedback link at the bottom of the topic, and follow the on-screen directions to submit your feedback to Microsoft.

By: Dr Ex

VSX Team Member

VSX Team Member

Paul Cornell

Documentation Manager

Visual Studio SDK User Education

My team’s goal is to provide great documentation that helps you or your developer customers customize Visual Studio to get work done faster and better. As we prepare to release each version of the Visual Studio SDK, we strive to provide you with the most important technical concepts, programming tasks, and reference pages for quick access. That’s why we rely on your feedback to tell us what information you most need, in what format, and how you prefer to get to it. To send us your feedback, please send us e-mail us at vssdkfbk@microsoft.com, or click the "feedback" link at the bottom of any Help topic.