Modifying the Isolated Shell By Using the .Vsct File

The UI project for a Visual Studio isolated shell-based application, as written by the New Project wizard, contains a .vsct file that lets you specify which application groups and individual commands are available in the application. The following is an excerpt from an unmodified .vsct file.

<!-- <Define name="No_WindowListCommand"/> -->
<!-- <Define name="No_MoreWindowsCommand"/> -->
<!-- <Define name="No_PaneNextPaneCommand"/> -->
<!-- <Define name="No_PanePrevPaneCommand"/> -->

By default, most commands and command groups are included. To exclude a command or command group, just remove the HTML comments for that command or group.

For example, to remove the next and previous pane commands, make the following modifications to the .vsct file.

<!-- <Define name="No_WindowListCommand"/> -->
<!-- <Define name="No_MoreWindowsCommand"/> -->
<Define name="No_PaneNextPaneCommand"/> 
<Define name="No_PanePrevPaneCommand"/>

For a more detailed example in which several of these customizations are highlighted, see Walkthrough: A Basic Isolated Shell Application.

Technical Details

The default .vsct file for an application references the following files. These files are located in the \VisualStudioIntegration\Common\Inc\ subdirectory of the Visual Studio SDK installation directory.

The AppIDCmdUsed.vsct file includes Visual Studio UI elements based on the symbols defined in the application .vsct file.

For more information, see Designing XML Command Table (.Vsct) Files and the VSCT XML Schema Reference.

See Also

Concepts

Isolated Shell Extensibility Points