Append item to Add menu of solution- or project node in Solution Explorer

Question

How can I add a sub menu for the Add menu item when right click on a visual studio solution explorer?

I have to add a single sub menu item which will be displayed n right clicking the visual studio solution and move to the Add option in that menu.

I am trying using .vsct (vs package). Please help me with valuable suggestions

Answer 1

Of course, there are similiar questions, but this seems to be a special case...

In general, you need to know the menu´s command- and package id that you want to extend. I usually do this by enabling the EnableVSIPLogging option in the registry as described by this article: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dr._ex/archive/2007/04/17/using-enablevsiplogging-to-identify-menus-and-commands-with-vs-2005-sp1.aspx. The EnableVSIPLogging option was introduced with Visual Studio 2005, but still works in any newer version.

Once the EnableVSIPLogging option is enabled, you can display the wanted information by clicking on a menu item (or any other UI element that is interconnected with a command) while pressing Ctrl+Shift. This will show a message box containing the package guid and command/menu id; Ctrl+C copies the shown menu- or command- data to the clipboard, btw. If you´re interested in menu data (in case it´s a context menu, press Ctrl+Shift before hovering the item).

This is what I got on my machine...

---------------------------
VSDebug Message
---------------------------
Menu data:
Guid = {D309F791-903F-11D0-9EFC-00A0C911004F}
GuidID = 4
CmdID = 850
Type = 0x00000100
Flags = 0x00000000
NameLoc = A&dd
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

The menu information can than be used in authoring your VSCT file; this question might be of your interest: Using vsx how do you create a sub menu with commands?

While reading the other question´s answer, you may wonder how these guys figured the names for the command guids... those names are defined by the vsshlids.h header file, which is included with the Visual Studio SDK. So, for the guid shown above we find...

// Guid for Shell's group and menu ids
DEFINE_GUID (guidSHLMainMenu,
    0xd309f791, 0x903f, 0x11d0, 0x9e, 0xfc, 0x00, 0xa0, 0xc9, 0x11, 0x00, 0x4f);

We can use guidSHLMainMenu for the group definition...

<Group guid="your-command-set" id="your-group-id">
    <Parent guid="guidSHLMainMenu" id="..." />
</Group>

I expected to find a IDM_VS_CTXT_ constant (or something similiar) in vsshlids.h that matches the command id, but nope... Instead I found cmdidShellWindowNavigate7 and cmdidShellWindowNavigate5 constants in stdidcmd.h; and just tried them out...

First I created new id-symbols for two command groups...

<IDSymbol name="grpIdProjectContextAdd" value="0x1080" />
<IDSymbol name="grpIdSolutionContextAdd" value="0x1081" />

And a command...

<IDSymbol name="cmdIdAddItemHelloWorld" value="0x1082" />

Than I defined new groups; and used the obtained command identifiers as parent...

<Groups>
    <Group guid="your-command-set" id="grpIdProjectContextAdd">
        <Parent guid="guidSHLMainMenu" id="cmdidShellWindowNavigate7" />
    </Group>
    <Group guid="your-command-set" id="grpIdSolutionContextAdd">
        <Parent guid="guidSHLMainMenu" id="cmdidShellWindowNavigate5" />
    </Group>
</Groups>

Of course, I need a button (which is placed in the Add menu of the project by default).

<Commands>
    <Button guid="your-command-set" 
            id="cmdIdAddItemHelloWorld" priority="0x1100" type="Button">
        <Parent guid="your-command-set" id="grpIdProjectContextAdd" />
        <Strings>
            <ButtonText>Hello World</ButtonText>
        </Strings>
    </Button>
</Commands>

To make the button also appear in the Add menu of the solution node, I use a command placement...

<CommandPlacements>
    <CommandPlacement guid="your-command-set" 
                      id="cmdIdAddItemHelloWorld" priority="0x1100">
        <Parent guid="your-command-set" id="grpIdSolutionContextAdd" />
    </CommandPlacement>
 </CommandPlacements>

For me, it feels a bit hacky to use the cmdidShellWindowNavigate7 and cmdidShellWindowNavigate5 constants, but in the result I got this...