Adding and Handling Commands

Article
10/12/2006

The following objects allow you to create, handle, and manipulate commands on Visual Studio .NET menus and toolbars.

Object Name	Description
IDTCommandTarget interface	Provides methods to determine the status of, or execute, a command added to the IDE using the AddNamedCommand method.
Commands collection	Represents all of the commands in the integrated development environment (IDE).
Command object	Represents a command in the IDE.
CommandEvents object	Provides command events for Add-ins.
CommandBarEvents object	Provides a Click event for when a control on a command bar is clicked.

Note If your command no longer appears on the appropriate command bar, or if you add a new command or modify an existing command, or if you would like to re-create the command, close all instances of Visual Studio .NET and double-click the file "ReCreateCommands.reg" in the folder containing the source code for your Add-in.

Using these objects, you can:

Add or remove a command bar in the Visual Studio .NET IDE (AddCommandBar and RemoveCommandBar methods).
Add a new named command to a toolbar or menu (AddNamedCommand method).
Invoke a command or named command (Raise and Exec methods).
Obtain the status of a command (CommandInfo and QueryStatus methods).

Note You cannot connect a CommandBarEvent event for CommandBar controls that were created for a new command added through Commands.AddNamedCommand.

Add Named Command Example

The following example uses both the Command object and its AddNamedCommand and AddControl methods, and the IDTCommandTarget interface and its two methods (Exec and QueryStatus) to demonstrate how to make an Add-in appear as a command on the Tools menu in Visual Studio .NET.

Implements IDTCommandTarget

Dim applicationObject As EnvDTE.DTE
Dim addInInstance as EnvDTE.AddIn
   
Dim objAddIn As AddIn = CType(addInInst, AddIn)
Dim CommandObj As Command
Try
   CommandObj = applicationObject.Commands.AddNamedCommand(objAddIn, "MyAddin1", "MyAddin1", "Executes the command for MyAddin1", True, 59, Nothing, 1 + 2)
   ' 1 + 2 == vsCommandStatusSupported + vsCommandStatusEnabled.
   CommandObj.AddControl(applicationObject.CommandBars.Item("Tools"))
Catch e as System.Exception
End Try

Public Sub Exec(ByVal cmdName As String, ByVal executeOption As vsCommandExecOption, ByRef varIn As Object, ByRef varOut As Object, ByRef handled As Boolean) Implements IDTCommandTarget.Exec
   handled = False
   If (executeOption = vsCommandExecOption.vsCommandExecOptionDoDefault) Then
      If cmdName = "MyAddin1.Connect.MyAddin1" Then
         handled = True
         Exit Sub
      End If
   End If
End Sub
   
Public Sub QueryStatus(ByVal cmdName As String, ByVal neededText As vsCommandStatusTextWanted, ByRef statusOption As vsCommandStatus, ByRef commandText As Object) Implements IDTCommandTarget.QueryStatus
   If neededText = EnvDTE.vsCommandStatusTextWanted. vsCommandStatusTextWantedNone Then
      If cmdName = "MyAddin1.Connect.MyAddin1" Then
         statusOption = CType(vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusEnabled & vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusSupported, vsCommandStatus)
      Else
         statusOption = vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusUnsupported
      End If
   End If
End Sub

Adding and Handling Commands

Add Named Command Example

See Also

Additional resources