Adding ToolBoxTab and ToolBoxItems in Visual Studio through an Add-In

Question

I have made my own control class by overriding base controls i.e.

[ToolboxData("<{0}:TextBox runat=server></{0}:TextBox>")]
public class MyTextBox:System.Web.UI.WebControls.TextBox
{
     public string myProperty {get;set;}
}

now for ease of use, what I do, is to Add these overridden controls in ToolBox window of the visual studio.

To do that, I simply do this.

Add a new Tab in ToolBox Window by right click and "Add Tab"
and then I do "Choose Items" (right click) and point to the dll of my control class.

All the controls that I have overridden i.e. TextBox, Button, Label appears there with the new name and icon. All I have to do is to drag them and use them.

Now, Is there a way, that my controls get loaded automatically? I mean I don't want to do above mentioned two steps.

See this is what I did.

Added an add-in and in its Exec, did this

public void Exec(string commandName, vsCommandExecOption executeOption, ref object varIn, ref object varOut, ref bool handled)
    {
        handled = false;
        if(executeOption == vsCommandExecOption.vsCommandExecOptionDoDefault)
        {
            if(commandName == "testAddin.Connect.testAddin")
            {
                handled = true;
                ToolBox tlBox = _applicationObject.ToolWindows.ToolBox;
                ToolBoxTab tlBoxTab = null;
                tlBoxTab = tlBox.ToolBoxTabs.Add("Test Controls");


                tlBoxTab.Activate();
                tlBoxTab.ToolBoxItems.Add("TestControls", @"C:\testLib.dll", vsToolBoxItemFormat.vsToolBoxItemFormatDotNETComponent);

       /////
         }

...but nothing happened. 'Test Controls' tab was there but no control. When I try to do same with System.Configuration.Install.dll ( found in [root]/Windows/Microsoft.Net/Framework/[dotnetVersion]/) folder).. controls get loaded perfectly..but not when my custom control dll is being pointed.

please help me. I want to add those controls everytime IDE starts up (like telerik controls). am new to this Extensibility Project Type of Visual Studio..

please help....

In case you haven't tried it yet this post (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5977340/problem-in-adding-user-controls-to-toolbox-programatically) says running as administrator works. — Gloopy, Jul 01 '12 at 03:22
You may want to look at the documentation here from the MSDN to automatically load items into the tool box. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb166237 — Nico, Jul 03 '12 at 09:18

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 04 '12 at 07:56

1

Try Visual Studio Toolbox Manager. I have my own updated version for VS2010 (DTE for VS2010 is "VisualStudio.DTE.10.0").

answered Jul 04 '12 at 07:56

Arci

588
7
20

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 04 '12 at 13:56

Since you are going to deploy your control using a setup installer, I would suggest using the Toolbox Controls Installer, which come with the Visual Studio SDK and can be easily integrated into Wix; this way, you could author your Wix setup project, include your assembly and just reference the aforementioned custom action for toolbox registration.

Adding ToolBoxTab and ToolBoxItems in Visual Studio through an Add-In

2 Answers2