Visual Studio Hacks

Build a Custom Tool #47

Chapter 6, Speed Hacks

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185

HACK

After choosing what language type to add your custom tool to, the next step

is to create a new key under that value. This key should be named the same

as your custom tool and will need to include three values; these values are

shown in Table 6-3.

Figure 6-4 shows the registry keys and values for this example custom tool.

Running the Tool

Now your custom tool should be ready to use. Inside Visual Studio, you can

create a file and specify that it should be handled by your custom tool in the

Properties window, as shown in Figure 6-5.

Whenever this file is saved, the custom tool will be run and your code will

be generated. You can view this generated code by clicking the Show All

Files button in the Solution Explorer. You will then see a plus sign next to

your file, and when you click that plus sign, you will see the generated file as

shown in Figure 6-6.

Table 6-2. Language GUIDs

GUID Language

{164B10B9-B200-11D0-8C61-00A0C91E29D5} VB.NET

{E6FDF8B0-F3D1-11D4-8576-0002A516ECE8} J#

{FAE04EC1-301F-11d3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC} C#

Table 6-3. Custom tool key values

Name Type Description

(Default) REG_SZ (String) A description of your custom tool

CLSID REG_SZ (String) The GUID for your custom tool (as

defined in the

Guid attribute)

GeneratesDesignTimeSource REG_DWORD (DWORD) Specifies whether your custom

tool creates a new file: 1 = True,

0 = False

Figure 6-4. Custom ...