These samples demonstrate how to customize the appearance and behavior of the Visual Studio IDE and editor. 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
If you've never written a Visual Studio extension before, we've got some great resources to get started.
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Clone the repo to download all samples (How to)
git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/VSSDK-Extensibility-Samples.git -
Find samples in the table below
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Read the readme included with each sample and try it in Visual Studio
For more details see the readme included with each sample.
| 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 |
| High-DPI_Images_Icons | Use these helpers to make your images/icons in VS 2013 only scale on high dense displays |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| Source_Control_Provider_Status_Bar_Integration | Display source control information in the Status Bar. |
| 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 |
| ErrorList | generates errors in error list when the user spelling errors in the editor |
Visual Studio 2015 introduced support for the Image Service, which makes it easy for your extension to support high-DPI displays, Visual Studio themes and high contrast modes for accessibility. We also have a catalog of thousands of icons and images that you can use as part of your extension for consistency with other parts of the Visual Studio interface. Samples that demonstrate using the Image Service / Catalog are denoted with * in the list above. We also have an Image Service and Catalog cookbook, which provides extensive documentation on using these capabilities.
For Visual Studio 2013, only high-DPI images/icons are supported; the High-DPI_Images_Icons sample shows examples of the limited support available.
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If you're building XAML controls for UWP that are deployed as NuGet packages, you can add design-time support so that they automatically appear in the toolbox when they are referenced. This sample is in the NuGet repo.
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We have separate repositories and documentation for writing extensions for other members of the Visual Studio family:
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Publish your completed extension to the Visual Studio Marketplace, which provides a convenient place for developers to find and install your extension.
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Join the Visual Studio Partner Program for free to get access to dedicated resources to support you as an extension publisher.
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For details on how to create user experiences that are seamless and consistent within the IDE, visit the Visual Studio User Experience Guidelines. You will also find information about the common user models and interaction patterns that are used and how you can utilize them as well.
This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.
Thank you for your support for Visual Studio - we're excited to see what extensions you build!