Visual Studio Extensions: Adding element to the Code Editor ContextMenu

Question

I'm trying to add a new element to the Visual Studio 2017 Context Menu. I managed to add an element to the TOOLS menu with the following code:

<Button guid="guidRandomCommandPackageCmdSet" id="RandomCommandId" priority="0x0100" type="Button">
    <Parent guid="guidSHLMainMenu" id="IDG_VS_TOOLS_EXT_TOOLS" />
    <Icon guid="exclamationIcon" id="exclamationIcon1" />
    <Strings>
      <ButtonText>Random Text</ButtonText>
    </Strings>
  </Button>

which is registered in

<GuidSymbol name="guidRandomCommandPackageCmdSet" value="{47122772-c66f-48f3-b10b-dbbb66da120d}">
     .
     .
  <IDSymbol name="RandomCommandId" value="0x0100" />
</GuidSymbol>

I tried to follow a similar fashion, so I defined a new Button in Buttons:

 <Button guid="guidRandomCommandPackageCmdSet" id="ToDoList" priority="0x0100" type="Button">
    <Parent guid="guidSHLMainMenu" id="IDM_VS_CTXT_CODEWIN"/>
    <Icon guid="exclamationIcon" id="exclamationIcon1" />
    <Strings>
      <ButtonText>Add TODO list</ButtonText>
    </Strings>
  </Button>with the ID symbol

with the ID registerd in GuidSymbols

  <IDSymbol name="ToDoList" value="0x106" />

But the button does not show up in the context menu, when I run the project. I tried to follow the suggestions of VSIX: Adding a Menu Item to the Visual Studio Editor Context Menu but none of the suggestions seems to work for me. I never tried to create a VS add-on before, so I welcome any suggestions. Is it possible that the method changed in VS 2017?

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 01 '17 at 15:49

Eventually, I managed to get it working. It seems that while for MENU items that show up either as a separate menu or belonging to a menu like TOOLS, it is enough to have only a Button with the parent set to the appropriate constant menu element string as defined at GUIDs and IDs of Visual Studio Menus.

For ContextMenu elements, however, I needed to have an element in Groups:

<Group guid="guidRandomCommandPackageCmdSet" id="MyMenuGroup" priority="0x0600">
    <Parent guid="guidSHLMainMenu" id="IDM_VS_CTXT_CODEWIN" />
  </Group>

This has the ContextMenu as its Parent. Then, I created a CustomCommand that auto-generates a Button with it and I modified this Button to have the Group element as itsParent: ` Add TODO list

This is the result with the added button hovered over:

Thank you so much for this. I have been searching for at least an hour! — Zintom, Jul 14 '23 at 12:57

Visual Studio Extensions: Adding element to the Code Editor ContextMenu

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