Visual Studio Blog

The official source of product insight from the Visual Studio Engineering Team

Extensions - Visual Studio Blog

Build Better Extensions with VisualStudio.Extensibility Preview 3!

March 2, 2023 Mar 2, 2023 03/2/23
Maia Kelner
Today, we’re very excited to announce the third public preview of VisualStudio.Extensibility, our new SDK for creating extensions for Visual Studio!The VisualStudio.Extensibility SDK focuses on extensions that run out-of-process from the IDE for improved performance and reliability, and it features a modern API that has been streamlined ...

Adding color to bracket pairs

September 5, 2022 Sep 5, 2022 09/5/22
Mads Kristensen
When dealing with deeply nested brackets in Visual Studio, it can be hard to figure out which brackets match and which do not. For people with color blindness or other optic maladies, the problem can be even worse. By color-coding bracket pairs, we’re making this much easier.Various IDE’s and editors offer this feature today – ...

VisualStudio.Extensibility: A New Way to Write Extensions

August 10, 2022 Aug 10, 2022 08/10/22
Leslie Richardson
Last year, we announced the first phase of a new extensibility model for Visual Studio.  This new model will make extensions easier to write and more reliable along with additional benefits such as being able to install these extensions without restarting the IDE.  Now, we’re excited to announce the second phase of the new extensibility ...

Differentiating Visual Studio instances

August 4, 2022 Aug 4, 2022 08/4/22
Mads Kristensen
When you have multiple instances of Visual Studio open at the same time, it can be tricky to tell them apart. Especially if you’re working on different branches of the same solution, which makes them look almost identical. What if each instance could have a unique color so you could instantly tell them apart? Would you use it?The ...

Analysis Services and Reporting Services extensions for Visual Studio 2022 are here!

July 12, 2022 Jul 12, 2022 07/12/22
Leslie Richardson
We’re happy to announce the popular and long-awaited Analysis Services, RDLC Report Designer, and Reporting Services extensions are available for Visual Studio 2022!  Here’s how these Microsoft extensions for SQL Server can further enhance your business intelligence solution development environment.SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS)...

Writing extensions just got easier

November 16, 2021 Nov 16, 2021 11/16/21
Mads Kristensen
In collaboration with the open source community, we’re introducing a new toolkit for writing Visual Studio extensions. Extensions used to be difficult to write, but the new toolkit makes it easier than ever. The toolkit consists of brand-new tooling inside Visual Studio as well as new APIs to code against. It’s all included in the free ...