Reusing the code editor
I've seen many examples of the VS designer being used in other applications(example in MSDN Mag recently). Is it possible to reuse the code editor in the same way?
In my application, I'd like for users to be able to write their own .NET code, which will in turn be compiled into a DLL. If it's possible, I'd like for all this to be done in one app.
Two questions here really.
1. Is it possible?
2. Can anyone tell me where I might start my search to acheive it?
Thanks!
Do you want your customers to write code using an existing .NET language or a custom one? If you want to use an existing language, it should be simple to use the built in editor for that language. If it is a custom language, I recommend downloading the VS SDK and using the wizard to create a custom language service.
Let me know if I misunderstood you and I'll try to point you to the right place.
Thanks,
Dylan
Hi Dylan,
I'm hoping we'll be able to let them use VB.NET. I think you understood my question perfectly I'd like to have a code editor that talks VB.NET (with intellisense and all the other magical stuff the code editor does now) inside my app. If you could point me in the right direction with this, that'd be wonderful, at the moment my users have to use Visual Studio (with some pretty nifty automation), but it's still not as natural as having it all done in my app. Unfortunately, my competitors already have a great code editor in their product, but we're only a small company and can't afford the resource to create our own, so we'd like to use yours *nervous laugh*. Again, it's fine if Visual Studio needs to be installed on the PC my app runs on.
Thanks a lot,
Paul
Ah, I I think I see what you mean. You'd like to host the VB.NET editor in your own app. Before we work out the technical kinks of doing that, lets make sure the license allows it. I'll have someone who is more knowledgeable about the license answer that for you.
Thanks,
Dylan
Hi Dylan,
I wasn't sure if there would be any licensing issues, if you take say Word, you can host it in your apps. That doesn't mean that you're competing with Word, your simply allowing another point of access to it. I'm hoping that Microsoft take the same view with the code editor. I've seen the windows forms designer been extracted into external applications, so hopefully it'll be the same as that.
Again, thanks so much for your help!
Paul
Hi Dylan,
No worries. It was a bit of a long shot anyway, I'll just put more effort into building tools to make it easier to do within VS2005 itself.
Thanks for closing the lid on this one so I can explore other avenues
Cheers,
Paul
