How to: Use a Macro to Add Text in a Visual Basic or C# Code Editor

You can use the extensibility object model to add code to any Visual Basic or Visual C# code editor. Possible uses of this feature include adding new procedures and adding standard comment blocks. This task assumes that you know how to access the Macros development environment and create a macro project. For more information, see Add Macro Project Dialog Box. To implement the following macro sample, you need to have a Visual Basic project open.

The following steps add text to a Visual Basic code editor. To add code to a Visual C# code editor, use the prjKindCSharpProject enumeration value in step five (5).

To add text at the top of the active Visual Basic code editor

1. Create a new macro module named EditorMacros.

2. Create a new macro, AddSomeText, by adding the following code to the macro module:

   Public Sub AddSomeText()
      ' Will add code here to add text.
   End Sub
   

3. Declare and initialize a variable to refer to the open code editor.

   Dim doc As Document = DTE.ActiveDocument
   

   For more information see Document object and ActiveDocument property.

4. The Document object contains a TextDocument object, which you can access with the Object method, as shown below.

   Dim textDoc As TextDocument = _
      CType(doc.Object("TextDocument"), TextDocument)
   

5. To make sure that you are adding code to the Visual Basic code editor, you can test the Kind property of the project that contains the window.

   If doc.ProjectItem.ContainingProject.Kind = _
   VSLangProj.PrjKind.prjKindVBProject Then
      ' Add code here to insert text.
   End If
   

6. Using the TextDocument object, create an editing point at the beginning of the editor. Then use the Insert method of the Selection property to add text to the editor. For more information see CreateEditPoint method and Selection property.

   textDoc.StartPoint.CreateEditPoint()
   textDoc.Selection.Insert("' A comment")
   

   The complete macro appears below:

   Public Sub AddSomeText()
      Dim doc As Document = DTE.ActiveDocument
      Dim textDoc As TextDocument = _
         CType(doc.Object("TextDocument"), TextDocument)
      If doc.ProjectItem.ContainingProject.Kind = _
         VSLangProj.PrjKind.prjKindVBProject Then
         textDoc.StartPoint.CreateEditPoint()
         textDoc.Selection.Insert("' A comment")
      End If
   End Sub
   

7. Save the macro, close the Macros IDE, and run the macro from Macro Explorer.

See Also

Reference

ActiveDocument

Document

TextDocument