Writing Add-ins for Visual Studio .NET

Abstract

From the Publisher: Visual Studio .NET is a paradigm switch for the developer using the Microsoft Platform. Add-Ins are powerful extensions to the Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment. The Add-In interface in Visual Studio .NET has increased in power, flexibility, and complexity in geometric proportions. Add-Ins can be written in Visual Basic, C#, or Visual C++. Add-ins written in either of theses languages can provide extensions to the environment, regardless of the language in which the add-in user is developing. Writing Add-Ins for Visual Studio .NET is designed to get the experienced add-in developer up to speed in developing add-ins in Visual Studio .NET very quickly. At the same time the book does not assume that the reader is an experienced add-in developer. It is designed to teach add-in development to the developer that wants to learn to write an add-in, while at the same time demonstrating enough real code examples to challenge the experienced add-in developer. Les Smith's book begins by teaching the reader to use the Add-In Wizard to create the basic framework. From there, he covers the manipulation of code in windows, control manipulation, and the manipulation of projects. Event Handling within the Visual Studio IDE is also covered and he demonstrates how the add-in developer can handle the various events to enhance the power of the IDE. The book explores, in detail, how to create an add-in User Interface, including ToolBars, ToolBar Buttons, Multiple-Level Menus, as well as creating a UI in the System Tray. Smith also addresses the migration of add-ins from VB6 to .NET for those developers who have previous experience in writing add-ins. Visual Studio .NET introduces a Class Library of over 3,400 classes. The greatest challenge that the add-in developer will encounter is finding the objects, methods, and events that are needed to perform the desired functionality in an add-in. Smith's book goes into the use of the required objects in every major area that the reader might need to develop functionality. Les Smith is an independent consultant, specializing in the development of Visual Basic .NET and ASP.NET applications. He is the President of HHI Software, Inc., and develops tools for developers using Visual Studio. He has been developing add-ins since the release of Visual Basic 4.0 and has been developing applications in Visual Basic for over 12 years. Prior to his PC development experience, which included the use of C and Clipper, he had twenty years experience in the development of mainframe operating systems for a major mainframe manufacturer. Smith also managed several large development projects, both on mainframes and PCs. ? Author is the developer of major commercial VB6 Add-Ins including VBCommander and VBXRef2000 ? Author has thirty plus years experience in Operating Systems Development and Applications Development ? This book contains complete practical, usable add-in code in every chapter. Additionally, the code for the book contains a library of reusable add-in code methods.