how to update Visual Studio UI when using DynamicItemStart inside a vsix package

Question

I'm implementing a DynamicItemStart button inside a Menu Controller. I'm loading the dynamic items for this button when Visual Studio starts. Everything is loaded correctly so the initialize method is called an I see all the new items in this Dynamic button. After the package is completely loaded I want to add more items to this Dynamic button, but since the package is already loaded the initialize method is not called again and I cannot see the new items in this Dynamic button. I only see the ones that were loaded when VS started.

Is there any way that I can force the update of this Dynamic button so it shows the new items?. I want to be able to update the VS UI after I added more items but outside the Initialize method. The implementation I did is very similar to the one showed on this msdn example:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb166492.aspx

Does anyone know if an Update of the UI can be done by demand?

Any hints are greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I finally got this working. The main thing is the implementation of a derived class of OleMenuCommand that implements a new constructor with a Predicate. This predicate is used to check if a new command is a match within the DynamicItemStart button.

public class DynamicItemMenuCommand : OleMenuCommand
{
private Predicate<int> matches;
public DynamicItemMenuCommand(CommandID rootId, Predicate<int> matches, EventHandler invokeHandler, EventHandler beforeQueryStatusHandler)
  : base(invokeHandler, null, beforeQueryStatusHandler, rootId)
{
  if (matches == null)
  {
    throw new ArgumentNullException("Matches predicate cannot be null.");
  }

  this.matches = matches;
}


public override bool DynamicItemMatch(int cmdId)
{
  if (this.matches(cmdId))
  {
    this.MatchedCommandId = cmdId;
    return true;
  }

  this.MatchedCommandId = 0;
  return false;      
}

}

The above class should be used when adding the commands on execution time. Here's the code that creates the commands

public class ListMenu
{
 private int _baselistID = (int)PkgCmdIDList.cmdidMRUList;    
 private List<IVsDataExplorerConnection> _connectionsList;


public ListMenu(ref OleMenuCommandService mcs)
{             
  InitMRUMenu(ref mcs);
}    

internal void InitMRUMenu(ref OleMenuCommandService mcs)
{            
  if (mcs != null)
  {               
    //_baselistID has the guid value of the DynamicStartItem 
    CommandID dynamicItemRootId = new CommandID(GuidList.guidIDEToolbarCmdSet, _baselistID);
    DynamicItemMenuCommand dynamicMenuCommand = new DynamicItemMenuCommand(dynamicItemRootId,      isValidDynamicItem, OnInvokedDynamicItem, OnBeforeQueryStatusDynamicItem);
          mcs.AddCommand(dynamicMenuCommand);                  
  }
}

private bool IsValidDynamicItem(int commandId)    
{      
  return ((commandId - _baselistID) < connectionsCount);  // here is the place to put the criteria to add a new command to the dynamic button
}


private void OnInvokedDynamicItem(object sender, EventArgs args)
{
  DynamicItemMenuCommand invokedCommand = (DynamicItemMenuCommand)sender;      

  if (null != invokedCommand)
  {
     .....
  }
}

private void OnBeforeQueryStatusDynamicItem(object sender, EventArgs args)
{
  DynamicItemMenuCommand matchedCommand = (DynamicItemMenuCommand)sender;           

  bool isRootItem = (matchedCommand.MatchedCommandId == 0);
    matchedCommand.Enabled = true;
    matchedCommand.Visible = true;
    int indexForDisplay = (isRootItem ? 0 : (matchedCommand.MatchedCommandId - _baselistID));
    matchedCommand.Text = "Text for the command";
  matchedCommand.MatchedCommandId = 0;
}  

}

I had to review a lot of documentation since it was not very clear how the commands can be added on execution time. So I hope this save some time whoever has to implement anything similar.