Extend Functionality in SQL Server 2005 Management Studio with Add-ins: ASP Alliance

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Extend Functionality in SQL Server 2005 Management Studio with Add-ins

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by Ameet Phadnis
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Article Contents:

Basic Concept

The basic concept of the SSMS add-in is the same as Visual Studio add-in. Before I get into the concept behind SSMS Add-In, I would like to present some basic concepts of the Visual Studio Add-In.

The steps involved in creating the Visual Studio Add-In are:

Click on Create Project in Visual Studio 2005.

The template for Visual Studio 2005 Add-In is located under Other Project Types->Extensibility->Visual Studio Add-In.

Figure 1

Please provide a name for the project.

The 6 step wizard will walk you through creating the Add-in.

Wizard Step 1: Select a Programming Language. You can select your preferred language. For my project I will select Visual Basic.

Figure 2

Wizard Step 2: Select an application host. The options are to create Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Macros or both. The basic idea is whether you want to create an Add-In or a Macro. Keep in mind the Macros can be converted to an Add-In.

Figure 3

Wizard Step 3: Enter a Name and Description. You can provide a unique name and description for the add-in.

Figure 4

Wizard Step 4: Choose Add-In Options. The options are whether to create command bar UI or Add-In when the host application starts and the add-in will never put up modal UI. The options are self explanatory.

Figure 5

Wizard Step 5: Choosing "Help About" Information. If you want to have your company's information in he About box then you can select this option.

Figure 6

Wizard Step 6: Summary. This will just provide the options you have selected. On clicking finish the wizard will create the project for you.

Figure 7

Please note that the Wizard has created a class called connect which implements IDTEExtensibility2. I will explain the connect class in a little bit.

Also, take a look at the References tab and you will notice the following references have been added:

EnvDTE

EnvDTE80

Extensibility

All the above steps are also the same steps for creating an add-in for SSMS.

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User Comments

Title: Register for COM Interop
Name: Charles Rex
Date: 9/21/2008 5:41:27 PM
Comment:
Hello,

The add-in must be registered before it can be used

regasm MyAddIn1.dll /codebase

or click project's Properties option from the Project menu, select the Build (C#) or Compile (VB.NET) page, and select the Register for COM Interop check box

Title: Quick Questions
Name: Alex
Date: 7/22/2008 2:17:40 PM
Comment:
How can i get the text and/or selected text from the active window. I need to retrieve the code that was executed

Title: Really hepful
Name: Viktar Karpach
Date: 4/15/2008 11:29:13 PM
Comment:
I want to create addin for object browser, so it would have better filtering possibilities.

Title: Tanks
Name: Harjit Singh
Date: 4/10/2008 2:07:38 AM
Comment:
I am a developer of .net, recently I did some test on add-in for SSMS. Thank you for the great article, it's very helpful for me.

When I try my test, I found using Node.GetService(typeof(IMenuHandler)), it returns a internal class DefaultMenuHandler, which implements interface
HierarchyObject IMultiSelectMenuHandler IMenuHandler IWinformsMenuHandler. In your article, you converted it to HierarchyObject to add a new menu item. And I want to get the existing menu item in the context menu. So I convert it to IWinformsMenuHandler. And use GetMenuItems() supplied by IWinformsMenuHandler, this function will return IList [INavigableItem]. Things go well by now.

Title: subkriskat
Name: subkriskat
Date: 3/21/2008 10:48:26 AM
Comment:
This is a very good article ,which customizing my sql .
But ,where can i get the reference for the SQLServer2005AddIn & SQLObjectNode
Thanks in advance

Title: A question about IMenuHandler
Name: Daliang Zhang
Date: 11/4/2007 10:06:00 PM
Comment:
A question about IMenuHandler

Hi Ameet

I am a developer of .net, recently I did some test on add-in for SSMS. Thank you for the great article, it's very helpful for me.

When I try my test, I found using Node.GetService(typeof(IMenuHandler)), it returns a internal class DefaultMenuHandler, which implements interface
HierarchyObject IMultiSelectMenuHandler IMenuHandler IWinformsMenuHandler. In your article, you converted it to HierarchyObject to add a new menu item. And I want to get the existing menu item in the context menu. So I convert it to IWinformsMenuHandler. And use GetMenuItems() supplied by IWinformsMenuHandler, this function will return IList [INavigableItem]. Things go well by now.

But when I try to enumerate menu items in IList, I found a weird thing. For example, I click a stored procedure node for the first time, GetMenuItems() return a IList with count equals to 1, but there should be about 12 menu items in the context menu; then I click another stored procedure node, GetMenuItems() return a IList with count equals to the correct menu items count. I don't know why. Anyway, since I get those menu items, I try to do some modification on them. So I try to modify the text of a menu item, try to disable a menu item, but all failed. there is no change when the context menu popup.

Have you ever seen this issue, could you share with my your experience, thanks in advance.

Daliang Zhang
Best Regards
mail:zdliang1981@gmail.com

Title: A question about IMenuHandler
Name: Daliang Zhang
Date: 11/4/2007 10:04:28 PM
Comment:
When I try my test, I found using Node.GetService(typeof(IMenuHandler)), it returns a internal class DefaultMenuHandler, which implements interface
HierarchyObject IMultiSelectMenuHandler IMenuHandler IWinformsMenuHandler. In your article, you converted it to HierarchyObject to add a new menu item.

Title: A question about IMenuHandler
Name: Daliang Zhang
Date: 11/4/2007 10:02:21 PM
Comment:
Hi Ameet

I am a developer of .net, recently I did some test on add-in for SSMS. Thank you for the great article, it's very helpful for me.

Title: For Sam and Mark
Name: A
Date: 10/24/2007 11:36:13 AM
Comment:
If you notice the registry entry already is mentioned in the sections for Registry. Also the debugging explains how you can setup the application for debugging.

Thanks

Title: Additional info that may help others
Name: Mark
Date: 10/24/2007 10:54:13 AM
Comment:
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Title: Thanks; but Results To?
Name: Daniel Macey
Date: 10/20/2007 11:13:58 PM
Comment:
Good to find someone has written about this.

Thanks!

I wanted to provide my own output option (Results To) but by the looks of SQLEditors.dll and the Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.QueryExecution namespace it is impossible.

Any comment on what I am trying to do would be appreciated.

Title: Great Article
Name: Sam
Date: 9/11/2007 9:11:35 PM
Comment:
Hi,
I hope you can shine some light on this. I am interested in debugging my add-in. in the mean time, i am not able to debug. I noticed my add in is never been loaded. Do i need to do the extra step by adding a register entry.
P.S I don't have the AddIn folder there, but i could create it.
(I am using Management Studio Express).

Thanks,

Title: SQLServer2005AddIn?
Name: kkam
Date: 8/23/2007 9:28:42 PM
Comment:
Hi,
I'm trying to follow your article and code samples to give me a start on my first SSMS add-in. In Listing 4 you define your incomming parameter as "SQLServer2005AddIn". What am I missing...I can't see where that comes from.

Thanks.

Title: Good Job!
Name: Kelly
Date: 8/8/2007 6:51:44 AM
Comment:
You rock,Ameet -- nice job!

Title: Wow
Name: W
Date: 8/7/2007 4:56:41 PM
Comment:
The SQL SP Generator you guys developed works great.

Thanks

Title: Extend Functionality in SQL Server 2005 Management Studio with Add-ins
Name: T
Date: 8/7/2007 3:32:02 PM
Comment:
What class are you looking for?
Check the Context Menu Addition Class
The Menu class to perform actions
sections to get more information.

The author has just put down the basics. They won't reveal the code as they own the code. Most of the stuff is given in the article itself.

Title: Extend Functionality in SQL Server 2005 Management Studio with Add-ins
Name: Hiren
Date: 8/7/2007 3:10:52 PM
Comment:
I was really interested to know about SQL 2005 extenbility, but it would help more clear if you explain more about creating class that have been used in this sample.

Title: Extend Functionality in SQL Server 2005 Management Studio with Add-ins
Name: Sanket Terdal
Date: 8/7/2007 9:48:26 AM
Comment:
Very nice article.The step by step demo makes it easier to understand.