Starter Kit: Visual Studio Shell Isolated
Introduction
The Visual Studio Shell Isolated Solution
Getting Started
Extending your Visual Studio Shell Isolated application
Preparing Your Visual Studio Shell Isolated application to ship
For More Information
Introduction

This Visual Studio SDK Starter Kit will help you create your own application based upon Visual Studio Technology. The project comes ready to compile and run, and it's easy to customize with only a little extra programming. The section Extending your Visual Studio Shell Isolated application contains a list of some customizations you might make.
Note: This documentation assumes that you have advanced knowledge of programming concepts, the Visual Studio environment, and the Visual Studio SDK. You can learn more about these topics in the product documentation by clicking Help on the File Menu, or by positioning the mouse cursor on language keywords or user interface elements such as windows or dialog boxes, and pressing F1.
The Visual Studio Shell Isolated Solution
This starter kit creates the following three projects to help you get started:
- The main application program contained within the project IronPythonStudio that will call the appropriate code to begin running your own instance of Visual Studio Shell Isolated.
- A Satellite DLL project - IronPythonStudioUI. All Visual Studio 2008 Shell Isolated Mode applications needs a menu bar. This project contains a Visual Studio Command Table (VSCT) file which defines which menu items are visible to the user. By commenting and uncommenting lines of text in this file, you will add and remove items from the menus. For example, suppose you do not want the View|Full Screen command to be available for your application. Inside the IronPythonStudioUI.vsct file, find the line <Define name="No_ShellPkg_FullScreen"/> and uncomment it. Doing so will cause the command to no longer appear after rebuilding.
Getting Started
Building and Running Visual Studio Shell Isolated
Once the Visual Studio Shell Isolated project is loaded into the Visual Studio environment, you can compile and run the program in one step. Press F5 to build and start Visual Studio Shell Isolated under the debugger. After building, the project will register your Visual Studio Shell Isolated program for use with your computer, and then launch your customized version of Visual Studio.
.PkgDef Files
These files are similar to .reg files, with the addition of replacement variables.
.PkgDef files files are read, parsed, and their contents are then merged into the registry. When your application runs the registry
entries created by the .PkgDef file are read used to configure how users view and interact with your application.
Most of changes that you might want to make to your application are made in
the file IronPythonStudio.pkgdef file. For example, open the file IronPythonStudio.pkgdef within the IronPythonStudio
project. Near the top of this file is an entry which looks like "AppName"="IronPythonStudio"
. If you were to
change this to "AppName"="My New Application Name"
and then build and run your application, the
title bar of the application would read My New Application Name
.
The "Command Used" VSCT file
Developers familiar with developing VSPackages are accustomed to creating commands. Visual Studio technologies contains a large set of predefined commands - such as File|Open|File or View|Task List - that are available to the user of a application. However, some of these commands may not be appropriate for your application. For example, suppose you do not want to enable opening files, therefore the File|Open|File command would not be appropriate for you to display in your application. You can hide or show these commands and the UI associated with them through the Command Used VSCT file.
Open the
Resource Files\IronPythonStudioUI.vsct
file in the IronPythonStudioUI
project and simply add or remove UsedCommands
or UsedCommand
definitions to
modify which commands are shown to your users.
Extending
your Visual Studio Core Isolated application
Changing the Splash Screen and Icon Graphics
The graphics that are displayed for the splash screen and for the icon of your application are stored in your application's local directory and referenced from the registry. It’s easy to modify the images to display.
To change the splash screen image:
- Expand the project IronPythonStudio from within the Solution Explorer tool window.
- Expand the Resources node of this project.
- Double-click the file Splash.bmp. Modify the image in any way that you wish, and then save the file. When you run your application application, the splash screen displayed will be your newly modified bitmap. Note that there will be an overlay drawn on the bottom left corner of the bitmap. This overlay cannot be removed, and will always be drawn on the splash screen.
To change the icons associated with your application:
- Expand the project IronPythonStudio from within the Solution Explorer tool window.
- Expand the Resources node of this project.
- Double-click the IronPythonStudio.ico file, opening it within the icon editor.
More Suggestions
A Visual Studio Shell Isolated application solution is designed to be extended and customized. Here are some ideas for extending it:
-
Visual Studio Shell Isolated does not include a Start Page.
If you want your application to closely resemble Visual Studio, create a Tool Window in the package project which renders data the way you want. - Create an "Express" version of your programming language:
The Express editions of Microsoft languages have proven to be very popular. Try creating your own Express edition for a programming language you have created. - Convert a package for Visual Studio Shell Isolated
Do you have an existing VSPackage designed for Visual Studio, but want to enable it to run inside of a Visual Studio Shell Isolated application? Simply create a .PkgDef file for the package and drop the file in the appropriate directory for a application. You can quickly do this with the regpkg tool by passing the /pkgreg switch to the command line.
Preparing
your Visual Studio Core Isolated application to ship
Once you have built your binary files, you need to package them to ship to your users. There are a few steps involved to prepare your code for release:
Package Load Keys & Application Load Keys
While testing your application, Visual Studio Shell will load and run the stub EXE and any VSPackages you generate because verification is disabled when you have the Visual Studio SDK installed. However, your customers will most likely noPackage Load Keys & Shell Load KeysWhile testing your application, Visual Studio Shell will load and run the stub EXE and any VSPackages you generate because verification is disabled when you have the Visual Studio SDK installed. However, your customers will most likely not have this SDK installed, and requiring it to run your application is an inconvenience to them. To enable loading your Visual Studio Shell stub EXE and VSPackages, you will need a Shell Load Key (SLK) for your stub EXE and VSPackage Load Keys (PLKs) for your VSPackages. To acquire these keys, visit the Visual Studio Extensibility Center where you can input your information to create both PLKs and SLKs. The files IronPythonStudio.pkgdef and IronPythonStudio.rc both contain comments showing how to use your SLK.Installing your files
After building your application, requesting your Package and Shell Load Keys, you will need where you can input your information to create both PLKs and SLKs. The files IronPythonStudio.pkgdef and IronPythonStudio.rc both contain comments describing how to use your SLK.
Installing your files
After building your application, requesting your Package and Shell Load Keys, you will need to prepare an installer program for your application. Installing your application will require three parts. The first step is to install an Microsoft Installer file (MSI) file that will install the Visual Studio Shell 2008 Isolated Mode program code on the end user's computer disk. More information about how to download this file is available at the VSIP Members web site. The next MSI to install will place the program code and any associated files that you have created on disk. This will include the two projects generated when you run the wizard, as well as any additional packages that you have developed. With these two MSI files, you will now need to develop a program to install both of these MSI files. This program can be a simple batch file to individually call each MSI file, installing them onto the user's computer, or an elaborate, UI-intensive program that gives users progress feedback and allows them to cancel installation. The choice of how this is done is yours, and depends on the requirements of your program.
For
More Information
Online Resources
- Provide feedback on this documentation
- Visual Studio Extensibility Center
- Visual Studio Extensibility Forums
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