Commands and UI

Today was a big source code check-in day. I sent well over 50 files to be checked into our source code control system, and I will be here late sending off a lot more. What kind of things did I change? Well, one of the most asked for features is the ability to add different UI types to a CommandBar, and with different settings.

For example, today when you call Commands.AddNamedCommand we will create a command. You can then add UI to a command bar for that command with the Command.AddControl method. But that UI element is always a button, not combo boxes, not menu controllers (the split drop-down button like that for the undo / redo command), etc. The change for Whidbey allows you to specify which control type should be used. This is the enum that contains the different control types available (this list is subject to change, either with the addition or subtraction of additional elements):

    enum vsCommandControlType

    {

        vsCommandControlTypeSeparator = 1,

        vsCommandControlTypeButton = 2,

        vsCommandControlTypeMenuButton = 4,

        vsCommandControlTypeSwatch = 8,

        vsCommandControlTypeSplitDropDown = 16,

        vsCommandControlTypeDropDownCombo = 32,

        vsCommandControlTypeMRUCombo = 64,

        vsCommandControlTypeDynamicCombo = 128

    } vsCommandControlType;

The second problem that people have with the AddNamedCommand/AddControl combination is in how all commands you create have both text and a picture, you cannot change the UI to have just text, just the bitmap, etc. This is the enum that we have defining the different types available (again, subject to change):

    enum vsCommandStyle

    {

        vsCommandStylePict = 1,

        vsCommandStyleText = 2,

        vsCommandStylePictAndText = 3,

        vsCommandStyleContextUseButton = 4,

        vsCommandStyleTextMenuUseButton = 8,

        vsCommandStyleTextMenuControlUseMenu = 16,

        vsCommandStyleTextCascadeUseButton = 32,

        vsCommandStyleComboNoAutoComplete = 64,

        vsCommandStyleComboCaseSensitive = 128

    } vsCommandStyle;

Of course, we have fixed a number of the usability problems developers would have when developing Add-ins. In versions of VS prior to Whidbey, if you would run the Add-in wizard, press F5, then kill the debugged process, you command would be lost and you would need to run devenv /setup to reset the state (which would also reset any of your customizations). We changed when we save data saying that the UISetup stage of your Add-in ran from startup to shutdown, fixing this common problem. We also decided today on a few other enhancements to make developing Add-ins easier, stay tuned for more details…