How to clear debugger output window Visual Studio 2012

Question

For VS 2012, I am not able to clear debugger output window using following MSDN code ,

Basically I am not able to pass DTE2 object, to ClearExample.

public void ClearExample(DTE2 dte)
{
    // Retrieve the Output window.
    OutputWindow outputWin = dte.ToolWindows.OutputWindow;

    // Find the "Test Pane" Output window pane; if it doesn't exist, 
    // create it.
    OutputWindowPane pane = null;
    try
    {
        pane = outputWin.OutputWindowPanes.Item("Test Pane");
    }
    catch
    {
        pane = outputWin.OutputWindowPanes.Add("Test Pane");
    }

    // Show the Output window and activate the new pane.
    outputWin.Parent.AutoHides = false;
    outputWin.Parent.Activate();
    pane.Activate();

    // Add a line of text to the new pane.
    pane.OutputString("Some text." + "\r\n");

    if (MessageBox.Show("Clear the Output window pane?", "", 
        MessageBoxButtons.YesNo) == DialogResult.Yes)
        pane.Clear();
}

Using other SO links couldn't make it work for VS2012.

Is it possible to programmatically clear the Ouput Window in Visual Studio?

Can the Visual Studio (debug) Output window be programatically cleared?

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 18 '14 at 02:13

Here is how I implemented it. Note the reference to another question-answer that helped me.

'   #region ClearOutputWindow
    /// <summary>
    /// Clear the Output window-pane of Visual Studio.
    /// Note: Causes a 1-second delay.
    /// </summary>
    public static void ClearOutputWindow()
    {
        if (!Debugger.IsAttached)
        {
            return;
        }

        //Application.DoEvents();  // This is for Windows.Forms.
        // This delay to get it to work. Unsure why. See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2391473/can-the-visual-studio-debug-output-window-be-programatically-cleared
        Thread.Sleep(1000);
        // In VS2008 use EnvDTE80.DTE2
        EnvDTE.DTE ide = (EnvDTE.DTE)Marshal.GetActiveObject("VisualStudio.DTE.10.0");
        if (ide != null)
        {
            ide.ExecuteCommand("Edit.ClearOutputWindow", "");
            Marshal.ReleaseComObject(ide);
        }
    }
    #endregion

'

Add reference EnvDTE: for VS10: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\PublicAssemblies\EnvDTE.dll — mvermand, Apr 29 '15 at 08:57
On my 64-bit system (Windows 10 with Visual Studio 2015) `EnvDTE.dll` was located under the path `C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\MSEnv\PublicAssemblies`. — Christian Junk, Nov 07 '17 at 13:00

How to clear debugger output window Visual Studio 2012

1 Answers1