You probably figured this out long ago, but anyway: You can setup your events from within OnConnection
like shown below, this is a snippet of an Addin's Connect class (assuming you're using c#):
using System;
using System.Globalization;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Resources;
using EnvDTE;
using EnvDTE80;
using Extensibility;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.CommandBars;
namespace MyAddin1
{
/// <summary>The object for implementing an Add-in.</summary>
/// <seealso class='IDTExtensibility2' />
public class Connect : IDTExtensibility2, IDTCommandTarget
{
private DTE2 _applicationObject;
private AddIn _addInInstance;
private SolutionEvents _solutionEvents;
public void OnConnection(object application, ext_ConnectMode connectMode,
object addInInst, ref Array custom)
{
_applicationObject = (DTE2)application;
_addInInstance = (AddIn)addInInst;
// check the value of connectMode here, depending on your scenario
if(connectMode == ...)
SetupEvents();
}
private void SetupEvents()
{
// this is important ...
_solutionEvents = _applicationObject.Events.SolutionEvents;
// wire up the events you need
_solutionEvents.Opened += new _dispSolutionEvents_OpenedEventHandler(_solutionEvents_Opened);
_solutionEvents.AfterClosing += new _dispSolutionEvents_AfterClosingEventHandler(_solutionEvents_AfterClosing);
_solutionEvents.ProjectAdded += new _dispSolutionEvents_ProjectAddedEventHandler(_solutionEvents_ProjectAdded);
}
// add procedures to handle the events here, plus any other
// handling you need, ie. OnDisconnection and friends
}
The main point is, to wire up the solution and project events you need, it's not important if a solution or project is already loaded. They're not attached to any particular solution or project, they're provided by the Visual Studio object model and are embedded within the EnvDTE namespace.
It wouldn't make much sense to do anything else anyway, since you can configure an addin to load when VS starts, and in this case there will never ever be any solutions/projects loaded.
There's a few catches though:
- It's important that you keep a reference to the SolutionEvents class as a member variable within your connect class, otherwise the events will never fire, (see also here).
- You need to make sure you check the
connectMode
parameter passed into OnConnection
. This gets called multiple times with different parameters, and if you do it the wrong way you may get the event wired up multiple times, which definetly will be a problem. Also, usually any Addin IDE, like Menus and stuff, is set up from within OnConnection
, so you may end up with duplicate menu items if you don't do it right.
Here's a few pointers, some of the code provided is VB code, in case you're looking for that:
Finally, here's a list of articles, about 70% of them cover basic and advanced topics regarding addins:
Find the section entitled MZ-Tools Articles Series (about add-ins) and have a look at what's covered there.