InsertGuid

title	description	date
Insert Guid Extension Sample reference	A reference for Insert Guid sample	2022-08-04

Walkthrough: Insert Guid Extension Sample

This extension is a simple extension that shows how a command that modifies an open editor window can be quickly added to Visual Studio.

Command definition

The extension contains a code file that defines a command and its properties starting with the VisualStudioContribution class attribute which makes the command available to Visual Studio:

[VisualStudioContribution]
internal class InsertGuidCommand : Command
{

The VisualStudioContribution attribute registers the command using the class full type name InsertGuid.InsertGuidCommand as its unique identifier.

The CommandConfiguration property defines information about the command that are available to Visual Studio even before the extension is loaded:

    public override CommandConfiguration CommandConfiguration => new("%InsertGuid.InsertGuidCommand.DisplayName%")
    {
        Placements = [CommandPlacement.KnownPlacements.ExtensionsMenu],
        Icon = new(ImageMoniker.KnownValues.OfficeWebExtension, IconSettings.    IconAndText),
        VisibleWhen = ActivationConstraint.ClientContext(ClientContextKey.Shell.ActiveEditorContentType, ".+"),
    };

The command is placed in Extensions top menu and uses OfficeWebExtension icon moniker.

The VisibleWhen property defines when the command is visible in the Extensions menu. You can refer to Activation Constraints to learn about different options that you can use to determine command visibility and state. In this case, the command is enabled anytime there is an active editor in the IDE.

Getting the active editor view

Once user executes the command, SDK will route execution to ExecuteCommandAsync method. IClientContext instance contains information about the state of IDE at the time of command execution and can be used in conjunction with VisualStudioExtensibility object.

In our example, we utilize GetActiveTextViewAsync method to get the active text view at the time of command execution which includes information about document being open, version of the document and the selection.

using var textView = await context.GetActiveTextViewAsync(cancellationToken);

Mutating the text in active view

Once we have the active text view, we can edit the document attached to the view to replace the selection with a new guid string as below.

var document = await textView.GetTextDocumentAsync(cancellationToken);
await this.Extensibility.Editor().EditAsync(
    batch =>
    {
        document.AsEditable(batch).Replace(textView.Selection.Extent, newGuidString);
    },
    cancellationToken);

Logging errors

Each extension part including command sets is assigned a TraceSource instance that can be utilized to log diagnostic errors. Please see Logging section for more information.

Usage

Once deployed, the Insert Guid command can be used when editing any code files. The command by default will be under Extensions menu.