Starter Kit: Visual Studio 2010 Shell Isolated

Contents:

Introduction
The Visual Studio 2010 Shell Isolated Solution
Getting Started
Extending your Visual Studio 2010 Shell Isolated application
Preparing Your Visual Studio 2010 Shell Isolated application to ship
For More Information

Introduction

This Visual Studio 2010 SDK Starter Kit helps you create your own application based on Visual Studio technology. The project comes ready to compile and run, and it's easy to customize with only a little extra programming.

The Visual Studio 2010 Isolated Shell provides a shell for developers to customize and use as the main delivery vehicle for their products. Some of the customization areas include:

Enable/Disable Packages through pkundef
Enable/Disable menu commands through VSCT file
A WPF Help/About window
Application title
Application icon
Splash screen bitmap
Command Line logo
User Files sub folder name
New Project Dialog solution tree node title
New Project Dialog installed templates header
Hide Miscellaneous files by default
Addins allowed
Disable output window
Allow dropped files on main window
Default search page
Default home page
Hide solution concept
Default debug engine
User options file extension
Solution file extension
Default user files folder root
Solution file creator identifier
Predefined aliases string
Default projects location
Application localization package

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 2010 Shell Isolated Solution

This starter kit creates the following projects to help you customize and extend the isolated shell:

The VSShellStub1 project, which calls the appropriate code to begin running your own instance of the isolated shell. The Shell Customization folder in this project contains the settings files you can use to customize the appearance of your isolated 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 isolated 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 isolated shell application. You can customize the menu command and the window as you wish.

Getting Started

Building and Running the Visual Studio 2010 Shell Isolated 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 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 file. 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.

Extending your Visual Studio 2010 Shell 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 VSShellStub1 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 VSShellStub1 from within the Solution Explorer tool window.
Expand the Resources node of this project.
Double-click the VSShellStub1.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 that 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 add that package to the Visual Studio Shell Isolated application solution.

Preparing your Visual Studio 2010 Shell 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 you should take to prepare your code for release:

Installing your files

After building your application, you will need to prepare an installer program for your application. More information about how to download this file is available in the MSDN topic Releasing a product.