Visual Studio Blog

Visual Studio extensibility is better with IntelliCode

October 8, 2019 Oct 8, 2019 10/8/19

Mads Kristensen

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

September 26, 2019 Sep 26, 2019 09/26/19

Mads Kristensen

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.

Async loaded .NET projects may impact Visual Studio extensions

August 8, 2019 Aug 8, 2019 08/8/19

Mads Kristensen

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

August 1, 2019 Aug 1, 2019 08/1/19

Mads Kristensen

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

July 11, 2019 Jul 11, 2019 07/11/19

Mads Kristensen

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

June 25, 2019 Jun 25, 2019 06/25/19

Mads Kristensen

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

June 11, 2019 Jun 11, 2019 06/11/19

Mads Kristensen

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.

Visual Studio Extensibility Day 2019 was a hit

May 29, 2019 May 29, 2019 05/29/19

Mads Kristensen

On Friday, May 10th we hosted both internal and external Visual Studio extension authors in the Workshop room in building 18 on the Microsoft Campus in Redmond. It was a full day event with keynotes and sessions for 60 attendees – half of which attended //build earlier that same week, and half who came just for the Extensibility Day.

Updates to synchronous autoload of extensions in Visual Studio 2019

May 20, 2019 May 20, 2019 05/20/19

Mads Kristensen

Visual Studio 2019 starts blocking synchronously autoloaded extensions in version 16.1. We’ve seen a tremendous effort of both 1st- and 3rd-party extensions to implement async background load. It’s been truly amazing to see the community of extension authors stepping up to the task.