Create an IDE Extension

In order to support an extensible architecture, the IDE provides various interfaces, which IDE extensions implement. Through these interfaces, the IDE communicates with its extensions. Depending on the type of extension being developed, extension developer must implement various interface(s) listed below. Download the sample extensions project by selecting the link below for detailed usage of these interfaces. The following diagram shows inheritance of these IDE provided interfaces.

Download the sample project

A typical IDE extension developer would go through the following steps when developing an IDE extension, which are common for any kind of extension:

• Adding references to the three .Net assemblies, as explained in the section “Getting Started with IDE Extensions”.

• Adding assembly manifest file, as explained in the section “IDE Extensions Manifest”.

• Adorning extension public classes with ”aaPluginAttribute” custom attribute, as explained in the section “Instantiating IDE Extensions”.