Learning the Visual Studio SDK with VSSDK Assist VSSDK Assist makes it easier to start extending Visual Studio using the Visual Studio SDK (VS SDK). Creating packages with the Visual Studio SDK can get complex depending on the level of integration with Visual Studio, and VSSDK Assist is a toolset that makes getting started much easier. This article will explore VSSDK Assist; an open source community-oriented set of tools that provides guidance, best practices, and code generation to support the creation of Visual Studio Extensibility SDK (VSX) components. Creating a Package Solution To start developing a package you first need to create a solution. VSSDK Assist provides a Visual Studio solution template that is very similar to the one that comes with the Visual Studio SDK, but in this case it only targets the C# language and provides the ability to add a new package project to an existing solution. You can gain access to the Visual Studio solution template by selecting File > Add > New Project, and then by selecting the category for Guidance Packages > VSSDK Assist (Figure 1). 
Figure 1: VSSDK Assist Visual Studio package solution template.On the first page you need to specify the name of the project (Figure 2). 
Figure 2: VS Package solution creation wizard page 1.On the second page you need to specify common properties for the package such as company name, package name, package version, the minimum Visual Studio edition required to run the package, package description, and the icon for the Visual Studio splash screen and About dialog box (Figure 3). 
Figure 3: VS Package solution creation wizard page 2.The solution structure that VSSDK Assist creates is very similar to the one that the template provided by the VS SDK creates. The difference is that the VSSDK Assist template automatically configures the debugging information for the project and enables VSSDK Assist on the solution (Figure 4). 
Figure 4: Resulting solution structure created by VSSDK Assist.In-context Guidance VSSDK Assist provides in-context guidance for all the operations that you can perform. Guidance and best practices are really an important thing for making Visual Studio easy to extend. There are different levels of guidance that VSSDK Assist provides, for example, via the guidance navigator (Figure 5), wizards, code snippets, and code generation. 
Figure 5: Guidance Navigator tool window.Each section on the guidance navigator has pointers to the VS SDK documentation file so if you click a link it will open the VS SDK documentation automatically. If you want to create a service, under the VS Service section you will see all the related links for that specific operation such as services general documentation, how to provide a service, and how to consume it (Figure 6). 
Figure 6: In-context guidance for VSSDK Assist operations. | 
By: Pablo Galiano
Pablo Galiano is an Associate of Clarius Consulting, a professional consulting firm based in Argentina. He has over eight years of experience in developing applications and over three years of experience in Visual Studio Extensibility.
You can read Pablo’s blog at:
http://clariusconsulting.net/pga
pga@clariusconsulting.net | Fast Facts | | VSSDK Assist is a set of tools that makes the VSX learning easier and faster. | |
VSSDK Assist Pre-requisites
Visual Studio 2005 (Professional/Team Suite) Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Update for Windows Vista Visual Studio 2005 SDK v4 Guidance Automation Extensions Feb 07 CTP |