visual-studioadd-invisual-studio-addins

Create a new top-level menu in Visual Studio


We have an add in for VS that currently is launched from the tools menu, the add-in consists of a a UI offering the user a few option buttons, which I now want to convert to a top-level menu that would offer the same functionality.

I've read this tutorial, which helped me add a new top-level menu, but couldn't really understand the logic behind all the steps. The guide doesn't really clear what each of the steps create or how can your change the output.
What the steps create is a new top-level menu with a single item underneath it. I'm trying to create some hierarchy in my menu (i.e. Top Level -> Sub category -> Commands) but got abit lost with all the groups/menus/IDs structure. Is there any clear explanation for the structure of these files? A documentation or a tutorial? If anyone had experience in the subject and could help clear things up I would much appreciate it...


Solution

  • I haven't tried doing hierarchical menu items, but I have had similar problems with the Visual SDK .vcst file. It is a pain. A couple of things you can do.

    1. Install the VS Package Editor to Visual Studio Blog Entry for it: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2010/09/08/introducing-the-vspackage-builder.aspx
    2. Download source code (open source so you can see how they do it) for an add-in that does similar things. Example is AnkhSVN which is a Subversion Repository Add-in to Visual Studio. Here is the source code: http://ankhsvn.open.collab.net/source/browse/ankhsvn/