Microsoft Visual Studio Shell (Isolated) 2012

Contents:

Introduction
The Visual Studio Shell (Isolated) 2012 Solution
Getting Started
Extending your Visual Studio Shell (Isolated) 2012 application
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Introduction

Visual Studio Shell (Isolated)

The Visual Studio Shell (Isolated) 2012 solution template helps you create your own application based on Visual Studio technology. The solution comes ready to compile and run, and it's easy to customize with only a little extra programming.

The Visual Studio Shell (Isolated) 2012 provides a shell for developers to customize and use as the main delivery vehicle for their products. Some of the customization areas include:

Note: This documentation assumes that you have advanced knowledge of programming concepts, the Visual Studio environment, and Visual Studio Extensibility. 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.

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The Visual Studio Shell (Isolated) 2012 Solution

This solution template creates the following projects to help you customize and extend the shell:

  • The VSShellStub1 project, which calls the appropriate code to begin running your own instance of the shell. The Shell Customization folder in this project contains the settings files you can use to customize the appearance of your shell application.
  • The VSShellStub1UI project, which contains a Visual Studio Command Table (VSCT) file that defines the available Visual Studio menu items. By commenting and uncommenting lines of text in this file, you can add and remove items from the menus. For example, if you do not want the View|Full Screen command to be available for your application, you can make the following modification: in the VSShellStub1UI.vsct file, find the line <Define name="No_ShellPkg_FullScreen"/> and uncomment it. Doing so will cause the View|Full Screen command not to appear after the solution has been rebuilt.
  • The ShellExtensionsVSIX project, which contains the "master" source.extension.vsixmanifest file, which contains references to the different extension projects in the shell application. By default, it refers only to the VSShellStub1.AboutBoxPackage, but you can add other VSPackages and Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) components.
  • The VSShellStub1.AboutBoxPackage project which contains a VSPackage that adds the menu command for a Help/About window for your shell application. You can customize the menu command and the window as you wish.

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    Getting Started

    Building and Running the Visual Studio Shell (Isolated) 2012 Solution

    Once the Visual Studio Shell (Isolated) solution 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) solution 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 are read and parsed, and then their contents are merged into the registry. When your application runs, the registry entries created by the .PkgDef file are used to configure the way users view and interact with your application. Most of the changes that you might want to make to your application are made in the file VSShellStub1.pkgdef.  For example, open the file VSShellStub1.pkgdef within the VSShellStub1 project. Near the top of this file is an entry which looks like "AppName"="VSShellStub1". If you 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 contains a large set of predefined commands, such as File|Open|File or View|Task List, that are available to users. However, some of these commands may not be appropriate for your application. For example, if you do not want to open files, 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\VSShellStub1UI.vsct file in the VSShellStub1UI project and simply add or remove UsedCommands or UsedCommand definitions to determine which commands are shown to your users.

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    Extending your Visual Studio Shell (Isolated) 2012 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:

    1. Expand the project VSShellStub1 from within the Solution Explorer tool window.
    2. Expand the Resources node of this project.
    3. 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, 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:

    1. Expand the project VSShellStub1 from within the Solution Explorer tool window.
    2. Expand the Resources node of this project.
    3. Double-click the VSShellStub1.ico file, opening it within the icon editor.
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