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I am trying to create a Visual Studio extension which handles a multi-language content type. Much like some mvc-templates and Django or ASP.NET which a certain part of the code is in another language.

I know that I should use Projection and I already checked Django for Visual Studio extension but the solution there includes creating a Language Service and going to the trouble of creating all bits and pieces related to a code editor. Here I am trying to achieve the same goal just by using MEF.

I know that you can use IProjectionBuffer CreateProjectionBuffer() to create a projection but the question is how to replace the current TextBuffer with the created one and when is the best time to do it.

Also one may expect that if he specifies a base definition of type "projection" like this:

[Export]
[Name("Whatever")]
[BaseDefinition("code")]
[BaseDefinition("projection")]
internal static ContentTypeDefinition WhateverContentType = null;

the received TextBuffer in providers to be of type IProjectionBuffer (after all IProjectionBuffer is inherited from ITextBuffer). Which are not and it seems that a projection base definition has no effect what so ever.

So if I want to rephrase my question in a tldr version:

How and when do you apply an IProjectionBuffer to current view (using MEF and without creating an editor instance)?

el_shayan
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1 Answers1

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So if I understand your question correctly, the answer is "you don't." A IWpfTextView is bound to a implementation of ITextBuffer (or a derived type, like IProjectionBuffer) at creation time, and can't be changed. Even if you could, many other extensions and language services would be most surprised by this and would probably crash.

To address your second question about content types: simply declaring you have a base content type of "projection" doesn't make you a projection buffer. All that really states is you might be creating projection buffers of that type, and when you do you want some extra ITagger support so taggers project through to the source buffers as you might expect them to.

Jason Malinowski
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  • Would it be possible to add to the Source buffers collection somehow? – jwize Apr 13 '14 at 05:52
  • You use InsertSpans/RemoveSpans or other stuff to add/remove individual spans. The source buffers is computed automatically from that. If you have further questions, it's best to create a new question from scratch. – Jason Malinowski Apr 17 '14 at 02:28