One of the most powerful features ever built into any software package has always been the ability to extend its features past what the original developers envisioned. The process allows for automation of repetitive steps, on the fly creation from templates, and even the gathering of metric data. In an application as powerful as Visual Studio, one well-written add-in could save thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in a project, not to mention hours of time. Of the books on writing add-ins in .NET, none show you how to extend your Visual Studio environment using C#. Nor do any of them concentrate mainly on writing add-ins. Instead both show you how to write add-ins in Visual Basic, and concentrate primarily on macros for extending Office and other Microsoft environments.
C# is the standard language of the future, and with it Visual Studio. A source that concentrates solely on extending the Visual Studio IDE will be very popular and useful for today’s professional programmer. This book not only teaches about the Visual Studio IDE, but it also offers developers a source reference they won’t be able to code add-ins without.
Regardless of what your project is or does, regardless if it is a big or small project, every developer has a need for add-ins and macros that get rid of redundant tasks. These tasks could be as small as inserting a block of comments at the top of each newly created file, all the way to auditing an entire solution and compiling a list of all Variable names, scope and methods. Add-ins are independent of a project as well so it can follow you from contract to contract, project to project. Add-ins save time and money.
