Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/cskardon/archive/2013/11/01/extending-blend-for-visual-studio-2013.aspxSo, I got a comment yesterday on my post about Extending Blend 4 and Blend for Visual Studio
2012 asking if I knew how to get it working for Blend for Visual Studio 2013.. My initial thoughts were, just change
the location to get
the blend dlls from Visual Studio 11.0 to 12.0 and you’re all set, so I went to do that, only to discover that
the dlls I normally reference, well – they don’t exist. So… I’ve made a presumption that
the actual process
of using MEF etc is still
the same. I was wrong. So,
the route to discovery – required DotPeek and opening a few
of blends dlls.. Browsing through
the Blend install directory (./Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0/Blend/) I notice
the .addin files: So I decide to peek into
the SketchFlow dll, then promptly remember SketchFlow is quite a big thing, and hunting through there is not ideal, luckily there is another dll using an .addin file, ‘Microsoft.Expression.Importers.Host’, so we’ll go for that instead. We can see it’s still using
the ‘IPackage’ formula, but where is that sucker? Well, we just press F12 on
the ‘IPackage’ bit and DotPeek takes us there, with a very handy comment at
the top: // Type: Microsoft.Expression.Framework.IPackage
// Assembly: Microsoft.Expression.Framework, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a
// MVID: E092EA54-4941-463C-BD74-283FD36478E2
// Assembly location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Blend\Microsoft.Expression.Framework.dll
Now we know where
the IPackage interface is defined, so let’s just try writing a control.
Last time I did a separate dll for
the control, this time I’m not, but it still works if you want to do it that way.
Let’s build a control!
STEP 1
Create a new WPF application
Naming doesn’t matter any more! I have gone with ‘Hello2013’ (see what I did there?)
STEP 2
Delete:
App.Config
App.xaml
MainWindow.xaml
We won’t be needing them
STEP 3
Change your application to be a Class Library instead.
(You might also want to delete
the ‘vshost’ stuff in your output directory now, as they only exist for hosting
the WPF app, and just cause clutter)
STEP 4
Add a reference to
the ‘Microsoft.Expression.Framework.dll’ (which you can find in ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Blend’ – that’s Program Files (x86) if you’re on an x64 machine!).
STEP 5
Add a User Control, I’m going with ‘Hello2013Control’, and following from last time, it’s just a TextBlock in a Grid:
<UserControl x:Class="Hello2013.Hello2013Control"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
mc:Ignorable="d"
d:DesignHeight="300" d:DesignWidth="300">
<Grid>
<TextBlock>Hello Blend for VS 2013</TextBlock>
</Grid>
</UserControl>
STEP 6
Add a class to load
the package – I’ve called it – yes you guessed – Hello2013Package, which will look like this:
namespace Hello2013
{
using Microsoft.Expression.Framework;
using Microsoft.Expression.Framework.UserInterface;
public class Hello2013Package : IPackage
{
private Hello2013Control _hello2013Control;
private IWindowService _windowService;
public void Load(IServices services)
{
_windowService = services.GetService<IWindowService>();
Initialize();
}
private void Initialize()
{
_hello2013Control = new Hello2013Control();
if (_windowService.PaletteRegistry["HelloPanel"] == null)
_windowService.RegisterPalette("HelloPanel", _hello2013Control, "Hello Window");
}
public void Unload(){}
}
}
You might note that compared to
the 2012 version we’re no longer [Exporting(typeof(IPackage))].
The file you create in STEP 7 covers this for us.
STEP 7
Add a new file called: ‘<PROJECT_OUTPUT_NAME>.addin’ – in reality you can call it anything and it’ll still read it in just fine, it’s just nicer if it all matches up, so I have ‘Hello2013.addin’. Content wise, we need to have:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<AddIn AssemblyFile="Hello2013.dll" />
obviously, replacing ‘Hello2013.dll’ with whatever your dll is called.
STEP 8
We set
the ‘addin’ file to be copied to
the output directory:
STEP 9
Build!
STEP 10
Go to your output directory (./bin/debug) and copy
the 3 files (Hello2013.dll, Hello2013.pdb, Hello2013.addin) and then paste into
the ‘Addins’ folder in your Blend directory (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Blend\Addins)
STEP 11
Start Blend for Visual Studio 2013
STEP 12
Go to
the ‘Window’ menu and select ‘Hello Window’
STEP 13
Marvel at your new control!
Feel free to email me / comment with any problems!
