VsSharp (VS#)

A lightweight toolkit for building Visual Studio extensions (VSIX). VsSharp wraps the EnvDTE automation model and the VS Shell interop APIs behind a friendlier, strongly-typed surface so you can focus on your extension's behavior instead of boilerplate.

Published on NuGet as VsSharp.

Features

• Host — a singleton entry point that wires up DTE events (solution, document, startup, shutdown) and exposes convenience accessors (Solution, Windows, Statusbar, output window helpers, service resolution).
• Command framework — declare buttons, menus and context menus in XML and have them built on the VS command bars at runtime, including nested sub-menus and dynamically generated menus.
• Dependency-driven enabling — show/enable commands based on context such as whether a solution, project, or document is open.
• Project & solution extensions — a rich set of EnvDTE.Project / Solution extension methods for references, project items, properties, package metadata, and more.
• Document & window accessors — read/write the active document's text and manage tool windows.

Requirements

• Visual Studio (extension development workload)
• net472
• The VS SDK is referenced via the Microsoft.VisualStudio.SDK metapackage

Installation

Install-Package VsSharp

or via the .NET CLI:

dotnet add package VsSharp

Getting started

1. Initialize the Host

Set up the Host from your package's initialization. Assigning Host.Instance.DTE automatically subscribes to the relevant DTE events.

using CnSharp.VisualStudio.Extensions;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell;

protected override async Task InitializeAsync(CancellationToken ct, IProgress<ServiceProgressData> progress)
{
    await this.JoinableTaskFactory.SwitchToMainThreadAsync(ct);

    var dte = (EnvDTE._DTE)await GetServiceAsync(typeof(EnvDTE._DTE));
    Host.Instance.DTE = dte;

    // optional lifecycle hooks
    Host.Instance.SolutionOpenedAction = () => { /* ... */ };
    Host.Instance.DocumentOpenedAction = doc => { /* ... */ };
}

2. Define commands in XML

Commands are described by a CommandConfig and typically loaded from an embedded XML resource. Each control points at a class implementing ICommand via its ClassName.

<root>
  <resource>MyExtension.Resources.Strings</resource>
  <buttons>
    <button id="MyExtension.SayHello"
            class="MyExtension.Commands.SayHelloCommand"
            dependsOn="SolutionProject" />
  </buttons>
  <menus>
    <menu id="MyExtension.TopMenu" caption="My Tools">
      <menu id="MyExtension.Child" class="MyExtension.Commands.ChildCommand" />
    </menu>
  </menus>
</root>

3. Implement a command

using CnSharp.VisualStudio.Extensions.Commands;

public class SayHelloCommand : ICommand
{
    public void Execute(object args = null)
    {
        Host.Instance.WriteToOutputWindow("MyExtension", "Hello from VsSharp!");
    }
}

4. Load the command manager

var plugin = new Plugin
{
    Id = new Guid("..."),
    Name = "MyExtension",
    Assembly = typeof(MyPackage).Assembly,
    CommandConfig = config // deserialized from the XML above
};

var manager = new CommandManager(plugin);
manager.Load();        // builds the command bar controls
// manager.Execute("MyExtension.SayHello");
// manager.Disconnect(); // tears the controls down

Commands declared with a dependsOn value (for example SolutionProject or Document) are automatically enabled or disabled as the corresponding context changes, via CommandManager.ApplyDependencies.

Working with projects

ProjectExtensions adds many helpers on top of EnvDTE.Project:

string ns       = project.GetRootNameSpace();
string dir      = project.GetDirectory();
bool isSdkStyle = project.IsSdkBased();
bool isCore     = project.IsNetCoreProject();

// references
project.AddReference("Newtonsoft.Json", @"C:\libs\Newtonsoft.Json.dll");
var refs = project.GetReferences();

// project items
project.AddFromFile(@"C:\path\file.cs");
project.AddFromFileAsLink(@"C:\shared\Common.cs", "Common.cs");
project.AddFolder("Generated");

// package metadata (NuGet PropertyGroup values)
PackageProjectProperties meta = project.GetPackageProjectProperties();
meta.Description = "Updated description";
List<string> failures = project.SavePackageProjectProperties(meta);

Key types

Type	Purpose
Host	Singleton entry point; DTE event wiring and shell convenience accessors.
Plugin	Describes an extension instance (id, assembly, command config, resources).
CommandManager	Builds, resets, executes and tears down command bar controls.
CommandConfig / CommandMenu / CommandButton	XML-serializable command definitions.
ICommand	Implemented by command handler classes.
ICommandMenuGenerator	Produces dynamically generated sub-menus.
ProjectExtensions / SolutionExtensions	EnvDTE automation helpers.
IDocumentAccessor / IWindowAccessor / IToolWindowAccessor	Document and window access.
PackageProjectProperties / ProjectProperties	Strongly-typed project/package metadata.

License

MIT © CnSharp Studio. See the repository for details.

Project home: https://github.com/cnsharp/VS.Sharp