Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Addin Command Names

What is the name of a command when you register it for an addin? Typically you use Commands.AddNamedCommand() to register a command. The second parameter is the command name. Now, when you want to look up a command you can use _DTE.Commands using the name you used for AddNamedCommand() and you're done. Right? Wrong! Let's take the csUnit addin for Visual Studio as an example. The addin has the name csUnit.csUnit4VS2005.Connect. This is the class that implements the interface Extensibility.IDTExtensibility2. This interface includes members such as OnConnection(), OnDisconnection(), etc. This full name - 'csUnit.csUnit4VS2005.Connect' - is also used in the addin file (see node Extensibilily / Addin / FullClassName). What VS 2005 and VS 2008 do is this: When you register a command, the name of the command will be automatically prefixed with the name of the addin. So in this case a csUnit command named Foo would turn into csUnit.csUnit4VS2005.Connect.Foo. Be aware of this. Otherwise your code may not be able to find your command in _DTE.Commands.

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