Customizing a VS Shell application
The customization points for our VS Shell application are available in three separate files.
The pkgdef file:
In this file we can customize things like the title bar, splash screen, icon graphics, start page and more.
[$RootKey$]
"ThisVersionDTECLSID"="{65a1a6a1-0b2a-461f-8dc2-1a3ebc299584}"
"ThisVersionSolutionCLSID"="{72636818-5927-4b0d-8c56-8c145875fa4f}"
"SplashScreenBitmap"="$RootFolder$\Splash.bmp"
"AppName"="MyVSShellApp"
"AppIcon"="$RootFolder$\MyVSShellApp.ico"
"CommandLineLogo"=" MyVSShellApp Version 1.0"
"UserFilesSubFolderName"="MyVSShellApp"
"NewProjDlgSlnTreeNodeTitle"="MyVSShellApp installed templates"
"NewProjDlgInstalledTemplatesHdr"="MyVSShellApp installed templates"
"HideMiscellaneousFilesByDefault"=dword:00000000
"AddinsAllowed"=dword:00000001
"DisableOutputWindow"=dword:00000000
"AllowsDroppedFilesOnMainWindow"=dword:00000001
"DefaultSearchPage"="http://search.live.com"
"DefaultHomePage"="http://www.myapp.com"
"HideSolutionConcept"=dword:00000000
"DefaultDebugEngine"="{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}"
"UserOptsFileExt"="MyVSShellApp_suo"
"SolutionFileExt"="MyVSShellApp_sln"
"DefaultUserFilesFolderRoot"="MyVSShellApp"
"SolutionFileCreatorIdentifier"="MyVSShellApp Solution File, Format Version 10.00"
"PredefinedAliasesString"=""
"DefaultProjectsLocation"="$MyDocuments$\MyVSShellApp"
"AppLocalizationPackage"="{209c95cd-4012-43e5-845a-f09f5f3a13ed}"
The pkgundef file:
In this file we can remove VS components by deleting the associated registry entries for our VS Shell application
For example if we want to remove the Server Explorer toolwindow from our VS Shell application:
//Server Explorer
[$RootKey$\ToolWindows\{74946827-37a0-11d2-a273-00c04f8ef4ff}]
The vsct file:
In this file we can turn on/off Visual Studio feature sets and menu command groups.
The rule is:
- To turn on a menu we need to comment the menu definition line
- To turn off a menu we need to un-comment the menu definition line
<Define name="No_TechSupportCommand"/>
<!-- <Define name="No_F1HelpCommand"/> -->
Links:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb685692(VS.90).aspx
Pablo
