VS 10 beta 1 extensibility model (Part 2)
***Disclaimer: This information applies to Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 only.***
In the previous post we covered the details of the Microsoft.VisualStudio.ComponentModelHost.IComponentModel service
Now it’s time to talk about the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Interop.IVsComponentModelHost, which is the other service that is proffered by the host package.
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Interop.IVsComponentModelHost service
This service has the following responsibilities:
- Get the catalog cache folder
- Get MEF component locations
The catalog cache folder is located @ %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\ComponentModelCache.
The Microsoft.VisualStudio.ExtensionManager.IVsExtensionManager service
To query extensions locations the IVsExtensionManager service is used. To filter only MEF component extensions, the “MEFComponent” content type in the VSIX extension manifest is used.
This service has many responsibilities which I will cover in future posts, but the one I will describe is:
- Get enabled extension locations
To get the list of enabled extension locations Visual Studio looks in the following folders:
- %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\Extensions
- %VS10_Install_Dir%\Extensions
- %VS10_Install_Dir%\Common7\IDE\Extensions
- %VS10_Install_Dir%\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions
The first location is where VSIX files are deployed once you double a VSIX file from the Windows explorer shell.
The other locations are being used Visual Studio core extensions and to deploy a VSIX file under those locations you will need administrator privileges.
Stay tuned,
Pablo
