PowerShell script to auto-add Visual Studio “External Tools…” menu options?

Question

We use Nuget to manage our internal toolchain and installing some PowerShell scripts, which we currently manually include in Visual Studio via custom \"External Tools...\" m

Answer 1

This is possible.

In the NuGet package's init.ps1 file, which has access to the DTE object, a new tool can be imported from a dynamically created file containing User Settings configuration that's then deleted after the user settings are imported.

Here's an example of a command to do imports. The example launches Powershell, executing a script in the root directory of a project. Note that I've used VS v9.0 for greatest backwards-compatibility, but it'd be possible to just export the existing tools menu configuration in v15.0 (or newer), and just replace the content in the file below accordingly.

init.ps1 file content

# NuGet Package installation script. Run 
# first time NuGet package installed to solution. 
param($installPath, $toolsPath, $package, $project)

# Determine fully qualified path to a temp file
$fileName = [System.IO.Path]::GetTempPath() + [System.Guid]::NewGuid().ToString() + ".vssettings"; 

# Create User Settings file:
'
    
    
    
        
            powershell.exe
            "& ''$(ProjectDir)\Myscript.ps1''"
            "$(ProjectDir)"
            
            true
            false
            true
            false
            true
            false
            false
            {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}
            0
            Launch Powershell
        
    
' >> $fileName


# Perform the import of the custom tool
$project.DTE.ExecuteCommand("Tools.ImportandExportSettings", "/import:""$fileName""");

"--Remove file"
Remove-Item -path $fileName

MyProject.nuspec (partial) content

In the .nuspec file, ensure that the init.ps1 file is included. In the case below, the source for the init.ps1 is in a Visual Studio project named 'MyProject' in the 'Scripts' folder.

    
      ...
    
    
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