Visual Studio 2008 SDK Goodies #3

Here's another goodie from the Visual Studio 2008 SDK. In
ProjectNode.CopyPaste.cs in the namespace Microsoft.VisualStudio.Package you'll find the following code snippet:

StringBuilder selectionContent = null;

// If there is a selection package the data
if (selectedNodes.Count > 1)
{
foreach (HierarchyNode node in selectedNodes)
{
selectionContent = node.PrepareSelectedNodesForClipBoard();
if (selectionContent != null)
{
sb.Append(selectionContent);
}
}
}
else if (selectedNodes.Count == 1)
{
HierarchyNode selectedNode = selectedNodes[0];
selectionContent = selectedNode.PrepareSelectedNodesForClipBoard();
if (selectionContent != null)
{
sb.Append(selectionContent);
}
}


Why do we need this if - else if construct? Does the foreach for a list with zero or one element not work?

Visual Studio 2008 SDK Goodies #1

When working with the Visual Studio 2008 SDK I found several remarkable places in the documentation and also in the source code of the MPF (Managed Package Framework). I'll post them in this blog the next days.

Today's Goodie can be found in several differnt Interfaces which have to be implemented for integrating into Visual Studio. You'll find a whole bunch of interfaces with reserved1() to reserved10() and unused1() to unused10() methods.

E.g. in IVsTextLines:

Reserved1	Reserved in the Vtable for future use. (Inherited from IVsTextBuffer.)
Reserved2	Reserved in the Vtable for future use. (Inherited from IVsTextBuffer.)
...	...
Reserved10	Reserved in the Vtable for future use. (Inherited from IVsTextBuffer.)

That's really awesome. Don't the guy's in the different teams at Microsoft know each other?

VSCT file format in Visual Studio 2008 SDK

Hilton Giesenow has made a fantastic How to video about the new vsct-file format which Microsoft is using in Visual Studio 2008 SDK. In contrast to other how to videos, just showing how to use the VsPackage wizard, Hilton shows every step manually. So you'll get a fare good understanding on each part.

You can find the video here.