These samples demonstrate how to customize the Visual Studio editor using the Visual Studio SDK. You can use editor extensions to customize the appearance and behavior of Visual Studio. The following are some of the ways in which you can extend Visual Studio:
- Add commands, buttons, menus, and other UI elements to the IDE
- Add tool windows for new functionality
- Add support in Visual Studio for new programming languages
- Add refactoring or language analyzers to fix and improve code
- Add a custom project type or new project or item templates
- Reach millions of developers via the Visual Studio Gallery
A quick summary of the samples included here:
| Sample Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Basic_Source_Control_Provider | Shows how to add hooks for a simple source code provider |
| Build_Progress_Bar | Displays a tool window written in WPF showing build progress |
| Caret_Fish_Eye | Uses line transformation API to zoom lines in proportion to cursor distance |
| Code_Sweep | Searches for words matching terms in an XML schema across a solution |
| Combo_Box | Place combo boxes in a Visual Studio toolbar |
| CommandTargetRGB | Shows how to create a multi-instance tool window |
| Completion_Tooltip_Customization | Replaces the completion tooltip UI |
| Diff_Classifier | Classifier with color highlighting |
| Editor_With_Toolbox | Creates a custom toolbox associated with a specific file extension |
| Highlight_Word | Highlight any words that match the word currently under the text cursor |
| Intra-text_Adornment | Text adornment that replaces hexadecimal color values with color swatches |
| IronPython_Integrated_Shell | Demonstrates how to create an integrated shell for IronPython |
| IronPython_Integration | Demonstrates a custom project type and WinForms designer for IronPython |
| IronPython_Studio_VS_Shell_Isolated | Example of using the isolated shell to host a language service |
| Lightbulb | Creates a custom lightbulb to set text case in text files |
| MSDNSearch | Implements MSDN search functionality directly into Quick Search |
| Menu_And_Commands | Demonstrates how to add commands to various places in the IDE |
| Ook_Language_Integration | Implements language support for a simple programming language |
| Options_Page | Shows how to add custom pages to the Tools / Options dialog |
| Reference_Package | Boilerplate containing minimum requirements for a functional extension |
| Reference_Services | Shows how to create and consume services as a service provider |
| RunningDocumentTable(RDT)_Event_Explorer | Creates an explorer grid to log events in a tool window |
| Single_File_Generator | Creates a file generator that uses XML as basis for creating a new C# file |
| Source_Code_Control_Provider | More complex example of a source code provider |
| Todo_Classification | Classifier that highlights TODO comments and displays a matching glyph |
| Typing_Speed_Meter | Displays an adornment with a typing speed indicator in the Text Editor |
| WPFDesigner_XML | WPF-based visual designer for editing .vstemplate XML files |
| WPF_Toolwindow | Provides a sample toolwindow that can host a WPF or WinForms control |
| Windows_Forms_Controls_Installer | Loads custom Windows Forms controls inside the toolbox |
Some other useful resources:
- If you've never written a Visual Studio extension before, you can find more information about developing features at Starting to Develop Visual Studio Extensions.
- Writing an extension for Visual Studio Online? Check out the VSO extension samples at the dedicated repository.
- In addition to these samples, many completed extensions have been published to GitHub or other repositories. Here's a list of other community Visual Studio extensions.
- You can publish your completed extension to the Visual Studio Gallery, where you can also get more information about joining the Visual Studio Partner Program.
Thanks for your support for Visual Studio - we're excited to see what extensions you build!