Adrian Alonso

A few weeks ago I started to work on a prototype language service for Visual Studio. We want to try the new Managed Babel System... so what is that? Let's start describing the scenario: Suppose you have your own language and you want to integrate it into Visual Studio providing Syntax Coloring, Statement completion, error markers, etc.  The VS SDK offers the MPF (Managed Package Framework) that provides a managed "easy" way to extend Visual Studio including support for language services.

And if you want to go a step further, you also have the Managed Babel System which lets you to specify a couple a files contaning the scanner and parser deifnition using LEX/YACC like syntax and tools (MPLEX, MPPG) to generate a lot of code you need to make the language service works.

These are the resources I found useful to start using these frameworks:

• VS SDK Documentation
• VS Extra Documentation: Managed Babel Overview, MPLEX and MPPG documents included in the VisualStudioIntegration\ExtraDocumentation directory (under your VS SDK installation directory)
• ManagedMyC sample: Included in the VS SDK samples.
• The Lex & Yacc Page
• Visual Studio Extensibility Forum

-Adrian

Labels: .Net, VS Extensibility

# posted by Adrian Alonso : 11:55 AM