Question

I want to be able to create a Visual Studio add-in with a number of commands. In the addin’s OnConnection method the wizard generates this boilerplate:

Command command = commands.AddNamedCommand2(_addInInstance, "MyAddin", "MyAddin", 
  "Executes the command for MyAddin", true, 59, ref contextGUIDS, ... )

This creates a single command for MyAddin on the Tools menu, but any attempt I make to create further commands are ignored:

    Command command = commands.AddNamedCommand2(_addInInstance, "MyAddin command2", "MyAddin command2", 
  "Executes the command for MyAddin command 2", true, 59, ref contextGUIDS, ... )

Is this a restriction of Addins themselves, that they can only correspond to a single menu item? Or does it have to be done in a different way? Should I be writing a VSPackage instead?

Answer 1

I found that you aren’t in fact limited to creating a single command in an AddIn. The problem turned out to be that the command names can’t have spaces in them as I had in the above example. In the Connect method of my addin I’ve now got a loop that iterates over a list of commands, adding them to the application’s command list and adding a new CommandBar for them:

public class MyCommandDef {
  public String Name;
  public String MenuText;
  public String Binding;
}

...

 foreach (MyCommandDef command in CommandList.Commands) {
   try {
     Command newCmd = commands.AddNamedCommand(_addInInstance, command.Name, command.MenuText, "", true, 59, ref contextGUIDS, (int)vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusSupported + (int)vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusEnabled);
     if (command.Binding != null) {
       newCmd.Bindings = command.Binding;
     }
     CommandBarControl newCmdControl = (CommandBarControl)newCmd.AddControl(myCommandBar, myCommandBar.accChildCount + 1);
     if (lastCategory != command.Category) {
       // add a separator. how?
       if (newCmdControl!=null) {
         newCmdControl.BeginGroup=true;
       }
       lastCategory = command.Category;
     }
    } 
    catch (System.ArgumentException) {
      // command already exists, or has a space in it
    }
  }