Add-In Toolbox Explained

Yesterday I posted a picture of the new add-in toolbox. I should really explain what the different items do...

Add-In Toolbox Context Menu

• Connect starts the application in a new app domain as an add-in.  Forms will be created as tool windows inside Visual Studio (unless they are modal).  Modal dialogs will appear on top of Visual Studio.
• Disconnect will call Application.Exit from within the add-ins app domain.  After the main thread returns the app domain will be unloaded.  If it doesn’t exit of its own accord within 2 seconds the app domain will be unloaded anyway.
• Exit will call Application.Exit from within the add-ins app domain.  It won’t force an exit if the application doesn’t exit of its own accord.  Most applications have a built in way of exiting.
• Reload will call Disconnect and then Connect from a thread inside the default app domain.  The ‘Add-Ins Toolbox’ is in fact the application you can see called ‘ManagedAddIns’.  Because reload is called from with the default app domain the ‘Add-Ins Toolbox’ is capable of reloading itself (useful for me during development!).
• Browse will navigate to the application’s directory.  For URL hosted add-ins (e.g. Wahoo!) this will typically bring up the application’s home page.  For local add-ins it will bring up the application’s directory.
• Configure will edit the applications .config file within Visual Studio.NET.  If an application doesn’t already have a .config file a default will be used.  The default included binding redirects to allow the application to run in both VS.NET 2002 and 2003.  It also included some commented out custom tool window examples.  At the moment the ‘managedAddIns’ configuration section requires the core Managed Add-Ins assembly to exist within the application’s search path.  If the assembly doesn’t already exist it will be copied into the application’s directory.
• Delete will remove the application from the add-ins toolbox.  It won’t delete the application itself!
• External will run the application outside of Visual Studio.  At the moment the application won’t appear in any tool windows.  I have architected Managed Add-Ins in such a way that I am hoping out of process add-ins will be possible.  Some applications for some reason don’t like running in the VS.NET process.  Hopefully running them out of process will solve this issue.

Add-In Toolbox Toolbar

• Home takes you to the Managed Add-Ins Home Page.
• Search takes you to the Managed Add-Ins Gallery.  This contains screenshots and links to applications that work as add-ins.  In future there should be so many we need a search box. Come on people submit your add-ins.. ;o)
• Open lets you choose an application to be added using a file dialog box.
• ComboBox lets you enter a URL or path of an application to be added.
• Connect will connect the application specified in the ComboBox (alternatively you can just hit return).

You can find the latest version here. Voting isn’t compulsory, but encouraged. ;o) You can find it under "Building the Reflector Add-In - turboslug".