November 2009 - Posts
There is a bug/issue that I reported years ago for VS 2005 and was not even acknowledged as a bug but "by design". VS 2010 (Beta 2) still exhibits it so I keep pushing to get if fixed (the original bug report was lost, I think it died when MSDN Product Feedback became Microsoft Connect):
VS 2010 Beta2: importing settings destroys commandbars created by add-ins
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=512214
The problem is that Visual Studio thinks that all the commandbars of the IDE belong to it, ignoring the fact that some commandbars belong to add-ins and it should ignore them when importing settings, rather than resetting them or destroying them...
To complicate things, when the add-in is unloaded at some point later (by the user or closing VS), it doesn't have a direct way to know if its commandbars have been destroyed by Visual Studio, so it tries to delete them and it gets a ObjectDisposedException....
In VS 2008 (and previous versions), when you opened the "Tools", "Customize..." dialog, "Commands" tab, you got a list of "categories", and each category has a list of commands that you could drag and drop on some toolbar to create a button from that command. For commands provided by add-ins, you had the "Add-Ins" category and for commands provided by macros you had the "Macros" category. Furthermore, you had a "Rearrange Commands..." button where a new dialog allowed you to select a menu bar or a toolbar, and add/move/remove commands (buttons), etc. So far so good, except one thing that VS has never managed well which is that toolbars, menu bars, commandbar popups and buttons provided by add-ins can be temporary if the add-in uses that approach instead of the permanent one, and therefore Visual Studio should not offer the temporary UI items of add-ins for customization, since customization will be lost when the add-in is unloaded and when loaded again the add-in will recreate the UI from scratch. I discussed these issues in detail in the article:
HOWTO: Handling buttons and toolbars user customizations from a Visual Studio add-in
http://www.mztools.com/articles/2008/MZ2008019.aspx
In VS 2010 (Beta 2), commandbars are WPF-based and the Customize dialog has suffered a re-design, but if it is not fixed in the RC / RTM builds things are getting worse due to these bugs (currently under evaluation, but likely closed as "won't fix" in this release):
VS 2010 Beta 2 Bug: wrong customization for commandbarpopup of add-ins
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=501255
VS 2010 Beta2: Add-ins and macros commands should not appear in the
"Tools", "Customize" dialog, "Commands" tab, "Menu bar" combobox
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=512141
Those bugs will cause confusion to users of add-ins if they try to use the Customize dialog...
At least these two minor bugs were fixed after Beta 2:
VS 2010 Beta 2 Bug: Command picture not shown in Tools, Customize window, Commands tab
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=502250
VS 2010 Beta 2 Bug: Command name shown instead of caption in Tools, Customize window, Commands tab
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=502242
This bug eluded me during several days because there was another bug that already caused VS 2010 Beta 2 to hang, but finally a couple of days ago I realized that was seeing a different issue (no commandbarbutton involved in this new bug) and I was able to isolate and report it today:
VS 2010 Beta 2 Bug: adding CommandBarPopup to CommandbarPopup causes VS to hang if CommandBarPopup was added to Toolbar before
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=507650
As I expressed some days ago, my feeling with VS 2010 so far (after four builds) is that once you patch your add-in to (somehow) bypass a bug, the add-in finds a new one.
The (VB.NET) code to reproduce it is:
Imports System
Imports Microsoft.VisualStudio.CommandBars
Imports Extensibility
Imports EnvDTE
Imports EnvDTE80
Public Class Connect
Implements IDTExtensibility2
Private _applicationObject As DTE2
Private _addInInstance As AddIn
Private _commandBarToolbar As CommandBar
Private _commandBarPopupOnToolbar As CommandBarPopup
Private _commandBarPopupMenu As CommandBarPopup
Private _commandBarPopupOnMenu As CommandBarPopup
Public Sub OnConnection(ByVal application As Object, ByVal connectMode As ext_ConnectMode, ByVal addInInst As Object, ByRef custom As Array) Implements IDTExtensibility2.OnConnection
_applicationObject = CType(application, DTE2)
_addInInstance = CType(addInInst, AddIn)
Select Case connectMode
Case ext_ConnectMode.ext_cm_AfterStartup
InitializeAddIn()
Case ext_ConnectMode.ext_cm_Startup
' OnStartupComplete will be called
End Select
End Sub
Public Sub OnStartupComplete(ByRef custom As Array) Implements IDTExtensibility2.OnStartupComplete
InitializeAddIn()
End Sub
Private Sub InitializeAddIn()
Dim commandBars As CommandBars
Try
commandBars = CType(_applicationObject.CommandBars(), CommandBars)
If MessageBox.Show("Create toolbar before menu?", "", MessageBoxButtons.YesNo) = DialogResult.Yes Then
' This hangs VS 2010 Beta 2
CreateToolbar(commandBars)
CreateMenu(commandBars)
Else
' This causes nested menus but doesn't hang VS 2010 Beta 2
CreateMenu(commandBars)
CreateToolbar(commandBars)
End If
Catch ex As Exception
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString)
End Try
End Sub
Private Sub CreateToolbar(ByVal commandBars As CommandBars)
_commandBarToolbar = commandBars.Add(Name:="My toolbar", Position:=MsoBarPosition.msoBarTop, Temporary:=True)
_commandBarPopupOnToolbar = AddCommandBarPopupToCommandBar(_commandBarToolbar, "MyPopupOnToolbar", "My Popup On Toolbar")
_commandBarToolbar.Visible = True
End Sub
Private Sub CreateMenu(ByVal commandBars As CommandBars)
Dim menuCommandBar As CommandBar
menuCommandBar = commandBars.Item("MenuBar")
_commandBarPopupMenu = AddCommandBarPopupToCommandBar(menuCommandBar, "MyPopupMenu", "My Menu")
_commandBarPopupOnMenu = AddCommandBarPopupToCommandBar(_commandBarPopupMenu.CommandBar, "MyPopupOnMenu", "My Popup On Menu")
_commandBarPopupMenu.Visible = True
End Sub
Public Sub OnDisconnection(ByVal disconnectMode As ext_DisconnectMode, ByRef custom As Array) Implements IDTExtensibility2.OnDisconnection
Try
If Not _commandBarPopupOnMenu Is Nothing Then
_commandBarPopupOnMenu.Delete()
End If
If Not _commandBarPopupOnToolbar Is Nothing Then
_commandBarPopupOnToolbar.Delete()
End If
If Not _commandBarPopupMenu Is Nothing Then
_commandBarPopupMenu.Delete()
End If
If Not _commandBarToolbar Is Nothing Then
_commandBarToolbar.Delete()
End If
Catch ex As Exception
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString)
End Try
End Sub
Public Sub OnAddInsUpdate(ByRef custom As Array) Implements IDTExtensibility2.OnAddInsUpdate
End Sub
Public Sub OnBeginShutdown(ByRef custom As Array) Implements IDTExtensibility2.OnBeginShutdown
End Sub
Friend Shared Function AddCommandBarPopupToCommandBar(ByVal objParentCommandBar As CommandBar, _
ByVal sCommandBarName As String, ByVal sCaption As String) As CommandBarPopup
Dim objCommandBarPopup As CommandBarPopup = Nothing
Dim objCommandBar As CommandBar
Dim objCommandBarControl As CommandBarControl
Dim iPosition As Integer
If Not (objParentCommandBar Is Nothing) Then
iPosition = objParentCommandBar.Controls.Count + 1
objCommandBarControl = objParentCommandBar.Controls.Add(Type:=MsoControlType.msoControlPopup, Before:=iPosition)
objCommandBarPopup = CType(objCommandBarControl, CommandBarPopup)
objCommandBar = objCommandBarPopup.CommandBar
If Not (objCommandBar Is Nothing) Then
objCommandBar.Name = sCommandBarName
objCommandBarPopup.Caption = sCaption
End If
End If
Return objCommandBarPopup
End Function
End Class
In the post CommandBarButton.Mask property deprecated in VS 2010 I mentioned that VS 2010 will deprecate the Mask property of CommandBarButton to specify bitmap transparency, accepting 32-bit bitmaps with transparency in the alpha channel in the CommandBarButton.Picture property instead.
The VS team told me some weeks ago that the CommandBarButton.Picture would accept also in next VS 2010 builds 24-bit bitmaps with RGB=0,254,0 (almost pure green) as transparent color (as VS has always accepted for commands). I have verified this week that VS 2010 Beta 2 accepts that possibility correctly.
Bottom line: VS 2010 will accept both in Commands (AddNamedCommand) and CommandBarButton.Picture:
- 32-bit bitmaps with transparency in the alpha channel
- 24-bit bitmaps with RGB=0,254,0 (almost pure green) as transparent color