Automatically run extension code in Visual Studio on startup

Question

Can I create an extension for Visual Studio that runs in the background as soon as the user opens the Visual Studio IDE? For example, I am building an extension that gets the current active file address in Visual Studio (with C#), but I would like this extension to always run in the background without having to be activated by the user clicking a button or pressing some key combination.

Is this possible, and if so, what is the best way of doing it?

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Regards, Erfan

Behlau

Depending upon what you're trying to do, you can specify your extension to load for certain file types. – Foozle

Answer 1

Since you tagged your question with visual-studio-2010 I assume you are working on an "Add-in" rather than a "VSPackage Extensions".

In this case, you can use the OnConnection event handler.

If you are working on a VSPackage Extensions, you can use the attribute ProvideAutoLoad.

Just search for these, you will find sufficient information. Both ways are also described shortly here under "How can I run my add-in code in a VSPackage?"

Penrose

Answer 2

For VS 2010 and higher the recommended extensibility approach is a package (VS 2015 won't allow add-ins).

To get the package loaded when Visual Studio is loaded see HOWTO: Autoload a Visual Studio package.

Once loaded, your package may be interested in two different kind of selection change events:

• To get notified when the selection in the Solution Explorer changes, get the IVsMonitorSelection interface and call the AdviseSelectionEvents/UnadviseSelectionEvents and provide a class that implements the IVsSelectionEvents interface.
• To get notified when the active window changes (which can be a document window or a toolwindow), implement the IVsWindowFrameNotify interface.

Overcareful

Answer 3

For Extension add following attribute to Package class, this will load the extension when a solution is not open in visual studio. I have tested this with VS 2015 and 2017.

[ProvideAutoLoad(UIContextGuids80.NoSolution)]

Ellerd