Find specific patterns in project via VS extension

Question

I am currently searching for an easy way to find specific patterns in our projects, because we were really sloppy with our localization... It would be great if the solution could be a Visual Studio extension that produces warnings in the error list, so that every team member can see directly that he/she is missing a translation.

I have started looking into extension using this example: https://github.com/Microsoft/VSSDK-Extensibility-Samples/tree/master/ErrorList But I am not sure if this is the right approach and how I can combine that with a pattern search instead of spelling errors.

Any help or idea is much appreaciated.

Answer 1

I can help you to write errors in the Visual Studio Error List(I did it in my VS extension), but I don't know how to find specific patterns in a project. To write something in VS Error List you need to use ErrorListProvider. In my implementation I inherit from ErrorListProvider and implement my own behavior for a "ErrorWindowController". The code looks like this:

public class ErrorWindowController : ErrorListProvider
{

#region Constructor

/// <summary>
/// Instance Constructor
/// </summary>
/// <param name="aServiceProvider"></param>
public ErrorWindowController(IServiceProvider aIServiceProvider) : base(aIServiceProvider)
{
}

#endregion


#region Public Methods

// Use this to add a collection of custom errors in VS Error List
public void AddErrors(IEnumerable<ErrorModel> aErrors)
{
    SuspendRefresh();

    foreach (ErrorModel error in aErrors)
    {
      ErrorTask errorTask = new ErrorTask
      {
        ErrorCategory = error.Category,
        Document = error.FilePath,
        Text = error.Description,
        Line = error.Line - 1,
        Column = error.Column,
        Category = TaskCategory.BuildCompile,
        Priority = TaskPriority.High,
        HierarchyItem = error.HierarchyItem
      };
      errorTask.Navigate += ErrorTaskNavigate;
      Tasks.Add(errorTask);
    }

    BringToFront();
    ResumeRefresh();
}

// Remove all the errors from Error List which are depending of a project and this specific project is closed
// Or remove all the errors from Error List when the VS solution is closed
public void RemoveErrors(IVsHierarchy aHierarchy)
{
    SuspendRefresh();

    for (int i = Tasks.Count - 1; i >= 0; --i)
    {
      var errorTask = Tasks[i] as ErrorTask;
      aHierarchy.GetCanonicalName(Microsoft.VisualStudio.VSConstants.VSITEMID_ROOT, out string nameInHierarchy);
      errorTask.HierarchyItem.GetCanonicalName(Microsoft.VisualStudio.VSConstants.VSITEMID_ROOT, out string nameErrorTaskHierarchy);
      if (nameInHierarchy == nameErrorTaskHierarchy)
      {
        errorTask.Navigate -= ErrorTaskNavigate;
        Tasks.Remove(errorTask);
      }
    }

    ResumeRefresh();
}

// Remove all the errors from the Error List
public void Clear()
{
    Tasks.Clear();
}


#endregion


#region Private Methods

// This is optional
// Add navigation for your errors. 
private void ErrorTaskNavigate(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  ErrorTask objErrorTask = (ErrorTask)sender;
  objErrorTask.Line += 1;
  bool bResult = Navigate(objErrorTask, new Guid(EnvDTE.Constants.vsViewKindCode));
  objErrorTask.Line -= 1;
}


#endregion
}

The ErrorModel is very simple:

public class ErrorModel
{
  #region Properties

  public string FilePath { get; set; }

  public int Line { get; set; }

  public int Column { get; set; }

  public TaskErrorCategory Category { get; set; }

  public string Description { get; set; }

  public IVsHierarchy HierarchyItem { get; set; }

  #endregion

}