Category:Extensibility from Visual Studio Blog

Live coding Visual Studio extensions

Mads KristensenAugust 17, 2020Aug 17, 202008/17/20

Writing extension for Visual Studio can be a challenging affair. It also happens to be extremely satisfying and a lot of fun. But even with our getting-started guidance, there is still a lot to learn, explore, and keeping up with. After 10 years and over 130 extensions, I still learn something new every time I write an extension. So why not ...

Use Visual Studio in Presentation Mode

Mads KristensenAugust 10, 2020Aug 10, 202008/10/20

Have you ever seen a presentation using Visual Studio, but had a hard time seeing the too-small fonts in the editor, Solution Explorer and menu system? How about all the custom extensions and themes the presenter used, making it harder to figure out what exactly was going on? Perhaps you were the presenter? Here’s how Visual Studio ...

Visual Studio extensibility is better with IntelliCode

Mads KristensenOctober 8, 2019Oct 8, 201910/8/19

Installing the Visual Studio extension development workload presents you with a choice of optional components. Looking at the list might leave you rather confused, because how are various C++ components and the Class Designer especially relevant to writing extension? And where is IntelliCode?

Watch the latest Visual Studio extensibility videos

Mads KristensenSeptember 26, 2019Sep 26, 201909/26/19

We have been posting several short videos about Visual Studio extensibility to our YouTube channel in the past couple of months. We chose the topics for the first videos, but now it’s time for you to tell us what videos to record next.

The PowerShell you know and love now with a side of Visual Studio

Ruben RiosAugust 20, 2019Aug 20, 201908/20/19

While we know that many of you enjoy, and rely on the Visual Studio Command Prompt, some of you told us that you would prefer to have a PowerShell version of the tool. We are happy to share that in Visual Studio 2019 version 16.2, we added a new Developer PowerShell! Using the new Developer PowerShell We also added two new menu entries, ...

Async loaded .NET projects may impact Visual Studio extensions

Mads KristensenAugust 8, 2019Aug 8, 201908/8/19

In Visual Studio 2019 version 16.3, the CSProj project system (C#/VB non-SDK style) introduces a new way of loading called Partial Load Mode (PLM). After the solution loads, the project system is doing design time builds in the background, leaving the UI responsive and interactive. Extensions may need to adjust for this behavior change.

Theming in Visual Studio just got a lot easier

Mads KristensenAugust 1, 2019Aug 1, 201908/1/19

Sometimes the default themes for Visual Studio just aren’t enough. Lucky for us, we’ve just redesigned the process of creating and importing custom themes.

Checklist for writing great Visual Studio extensions

Mads KristensenJuly 11, 2019Jul 11, 201907/11/19

Great Visual Studio extensions share a few key features that sets them apart from the rest. They look and feel well crafted, are performant and reliable, do what they advertise to perfection, and blend in naturally among Visual Studio’s own features.

Visual Studio tips and tricks

Mads KristensenJune 25, 2019Jun 25, 201906/25/19

Whether you are new or have been using Visual Studio for years, there are a bunch of tips and tricks that can make you more productive. We’ve been sharing tips on Twitter using the #vstip hashtag for a while, and this is a collection of the best ones so far.

Create a private gallery for self-hosted Visual Studio extensions

Mads KristensenJune 11, 2019Jun 11, 201906/11/19

Most Visual Studio extension authors publish their extensions to the public Marketplace to allow everyone to install them and benefit from the large and open ecosystem. However, some companies create extensions for internal use only. A private gallery allows them to distribute these extensions with ease.

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