Chapter 10. The Visual Studio Automation Object Model


IN THIS CHAPTER

  • An Overview of the Automation Object Model

  • Solution and Project Objects

  • Windows

  • Command Bars

  • Documents

  • Command Objects

  • Debugger Objects

  • Automation Events

Visual Studio is built to be "extensible." It ships with its own API to enable you, the developer, to control many of the pieces of the IDE.

The API is called the Visual Studio automation object model, and understanding its capabilities is the key to unlocking your ability to program and control the IDE itself by writing code in the form of macros and add-ins (discussed in Chapter 11, "Writing Macros, Add-Ins, and Wizards").

In this chapter, we discuss the layout and structure of the automation object model. We map the various objects in the object model to their IDE counterparts, delve into the various ways to interact with these objects through managed code, and, we hope, start to see a glimpse of the possibilities in terms of Visual Studio customization.

To drive home the object model concepts and place them in context, we have provided various code snippets and listings, nearly 100% of which are written in Visual Basic. The reason is that Visual Basic is the language of macros (other languages are not supported), and macros are by far the easiest and quickest way to reach out and touch elements of the IDE. As such, macros are a perfect vehicle for exploring and understanding the object model. In Chapter 11, we'll move beyond the object model and work to understand how to use, write, and run macros and add-ins (add-ins don't suffer from the Visual Basic limitation, so we'll switch gears and provide a majority of our add-in code using C#).

Don't worry too much about the mechanics of writing an add-in or macro at this point; concentrate instead on understanding the automation objects and how they are referenced and used. For the ambitious, know that the code listings here can be pasted directly into the Macros IDE Editor and run as is.




Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Unleashed
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Unleashed
ISBN: 0672328194
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 195

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