Professional Visual Studio Extensibility | 
 enlarge | Author: Keyvan Nayyeri
Publisher: Wrox
Category: Book
List Price: $49.99
Buy New: $26.36
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Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 35967
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 520
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 7.3 x 1.4
ISBN: 0470230843
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.2762
EAN: 9780470230848
ASIN: 0470230843
Publication Date: March 10, 2008
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Product Description
Determined to make the Visual Studio Extensibility (VSX) learning process as smooth as possible, this helpful resource shows you how to use VSX in order to facilitate easier development of Microsoft programming languages and development technologies. Keyvan Nayyeri examines how VSX simplifies the processes of coding, compilation, deployment, debugging, and testing. Plus, numerous examples, sample code, and real-world case studies demonstrate the various extensibility options of VSX so that you can perform routine tasks easier and quicker.
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| Customer Reviews:
Good Book June 22, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Keyvan Nayyeri explores each of the areas of VS Extensibility. He breaks the book up into logical sections, first illustrating the API that Visual Studio uses to represent the user interface. If you have never looked at the API for Visual Studio before, it's not user friendly, so it was good that he provided a brief description of the properties and methods for the various objects, followed by a few examples using those objects to perform certain tasks.
I thought some of the most useful content of the book features discussions on showing custom windows forms, and creating custom option windows using user controls (to display in the Tools > Options dialog), and creating custom debugger type proxies and visualizers. That's definitely not all the book focuses on; the subject matter also ranges in the areas of working with solutions, projects, code files, the text editor, command bars, custom windows, deployment, testing, unit testing and more.
The book covers other topics related to extensibility. Keyvan covers the Visual Studio hive and how it can be used when developing VS extensions. It also covers Domain Specific Language tools (which I was appreciative for because I didn't fully understand what DSL was supposed to be) by creating a sample language. Code Snippets and Templates are another feature I look forward to implement in one of my applications, because it will be very useful and helpful to my fellow coworkers. And, one of the more interesting topics for VS Packages,
Keyvan works with a consistent motion throughout the book. When he explained the API, he started out explaining each object related to the chapter, then ended the chapter with some sample code. When getting into the other subjects like extending the debugger or macros, Keyvan discusses each subject and mixes in screenshots and code of what each feature looks like as he goes. Only in a couple of chapters does he primarily show the screenshots of how the utility or feature gets setup.
The other point about the book is how he attempt to explain the intricate details about the code that Visual Studio generates, regarding the Connect.cs and .AddIn files generated by the template. This is important because even though the code is generated for you. Again, it's not always clear what the code files are for and it's good to get an overview of these files from the book, and their purpose.
This book help whet my appetite for developing extensions, and I hope to develop one that is functional. The one caveat to this book is that it left me wanting to know more about extensibility, and I thought a few topics were cut short from what they could have been. I agree no book is perfect and will explain every subject to the readers desire, but I felt that a few more examples, or a larger example in an appendix would have been a benefit to the readers.
A good introduction. June 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is one of those difficult books to review because it attempts to cover a huge topic. Overall it provides a good overview of Visual Studio extensibility but if you want to really use it you're going to have to dive into the MSDN documentation and browse the source on CodePlex (Iron Python and Iron Python Studio are a must). Some topics, such as DSLs and MSBuild have other books dedicated to them.
Unfortunately, due to the depth of the topic, a lot of the chapters are simple introductions and are only useful for highlighting a feature and what can be done with it. This isn't a bad thing, although I think these chapters could have been shortened and merged, and other topics added for completeness (such as language services).
Overall, the book is well written with few errors, although chapter 11 (Tools Options Page) seems to have missed the editors pen and the code is incorrect (and/or not explained properly). The chapters on extending the debugger (17), code snippets (19) and templates (20) are particularly useful and make the book a worthwhile read.
 Wide, but shallow June 4, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Covers all aspects of VS extensibility, but in a shallow way. Its not surprising, considering the page count and the number of different ways you can extend and use Visual Studio.
The book concentrates more on addins than other points of extensibility. So if you're looking at creating an addin, or some other not-too-complex work (such as visualizers) this is a good starting point.
If you are looking to do some heavy lifting, such as creating VS packages, you won't get much more than an introduction into the subject. A good intro, but not much more.
 Great so far, especially the objective tone April 14, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I just ordered the book from Amazon after a careful search online and in bookstores. This was the only in-depth text that covers the topic of extending Visual Studio in all its manifestations be they macros, add-ins or other extension strategies. Team leads, configuration managers and toolsmiths in Windows development environments will not want to miss this.
Anyway, then I saw a copy on a shelf at the local bookseller, so I read the first chapter and skimmed most of the chapters. I'm writing a review because I am very impressed with the tone, honesty and objectivity of the text as well as a refreshing economy of expression that is difficult to find in most books written about Microsoft technology. Most authors, especially, but not limited to Microsoft press, fall all over themselves trying to explain just how wonderful, easy and powerful everything is, adding to your frustration when you sit down and try and use the product. Not this book. It is realistic and open about the complexity that we experienced developers are accustomed to, and then it steers you around the pitfalls.
Good job Keyvan! You go into careful detail about the history of Visual Studio as a com product, and how that makes extending it a little tricky. Thank you for this refreshing honesty and insight, so I know I'm not the only one. You also detail some of the hoops you had to jump through to get proper documentation. I can't wait for my copy to arrive later this week!
If you want an independent, realistic text, this is the book for you.
Update: I've completed a first pass of the entire book and found it broad but not very deep. There are many place that could use more detail or maybe a second edition. It could also benefit from a few detailed examples. The simple examples were a fine start.
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