Properties Window Fields and Interfaces

Applies to: Visual Studio Visual Studio for Mac

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

The model for selection to determine what information is displayed in the Properties window is based on the window that has focus in the IDE. Every window, and object within the selected window, can have its selection context object pushed to the global selection context. The environment updates the global selection context with values from a window frame when that window has the focus. When the focus changes, so does the selection context.

Tracking Selection in the IDE

The window frame or site, owned by the IDE, has a service called STrackSelection. The following steps show how a change in a selection, caused by the user either changing focus to another open window or selecting a different project item in Solution Explorer, is implemented to change the content displayed in the Properties window.

1. The object created by your VSPackage that is sited in the selected window calls QueryService to have STrackSelection invoke ITrackSelection.

2. The selection container, provided by the selected window, creates its own ISelectionContainer object. When the selection changes, the VSPackage calls OnSelectChange to notify any listeners in the environment, including the Properties window, of the change. It also provides access to hierarchy and item information related to the new selection.

3. Calling OnSelectChange and passing it the selected hierarchy items in the VSHPROPID_BrowseObject parameter populates the ISelectionContainer object.

4. An object derived from the IDispatch Interface is returned for __VSHPROPID.VSHPROPID_BrowseObject for the item requested, and the environment wraps it into an ISelectionContainer (see the following step). If the call fails, the environment makes a second call to IVsHierarchy::GetProperty, passing it the selection container __VSHPROPID.VSHPROPID_SelContainer that the hierarchy item or items supply.

   Your project VSPackage does not create ISelectionContainer because the environment-supplied window VSPackage that implements it (for example, Solution Explorer) constructs ISelectionContainer on its behalf.

5. The environment invokes the methods of ISelectionContainer to get the objects based on the IDispatch interface to fill in the Properties window.

   When a value in the Properties window is changed, VSPackages implement IVsTrackSelectionEx::OnElementValueChangeEx and IVsTrackSelectionEx::OnSelectionChangeEx to report the change to the element value. The environment then invokes IVsUIShell or IConnectionPointContainer to keep the information displayed in the Properties window synchronized with the property values. For more information, see Updating Property Values in the Properties Window.

   In addition to selecting a different project item in Solution Explorer to display properties related to that item, you can also choose a different object from within a form or document window using the drop-down list available on the Properties window. For more information, see Properties Window Object List.

   You can change the way information is displayed in the Properties window grid from alphabetical to categorical, and, if available, you can also open a property page for a selected object by clicking the appropriate buttons on the Properties window. For more information, see Properties Window Buttons and Property Pages.

   Finally, the bottom of the Properties window also contains a description of the field selected in the Properties window grid. For more information, see Getting Field Descriptions from the Properties Window.

Updating Property Values in the Properties Window

There are two ways to keep the Properties window in sync with property value changes. The first is to call the IVsUIShell interface, which provides access to basic windowing functionality, including access to and creation of tool and document windows provided by the environment. The following steps describe this synchronization process.

Updating Property Values Using IVsUIShell

To update property values using the IVsUIShell interface

1. Call IVsUIShell (through SVsUIShell service) any time that VSPackages, projects, or editors need to create or enumerate tool or document windows.

2. Implement RefreshPropertyBrowser to keep the Properties window in sync with property changes for a project (or any other selected object being browsed by the Properties window) without implementing IConnectionPointContainer and firing OnChanged events.

3. Implement the IVsHierarchy methods AdviseHierarchyEvents and UnadviseHierarchyEvents to establish and disable, respectively, client notification of hierarchy events without requiring the hierarchy to implement IConnectionPointContainer.

Updating Property Values Using IConnection

The second way to keep the Properties window in sync with property value changes is to implement IConnection on the connectable object to indicate the existence of the outgoing interfaces. If you wish to localize the property name, derive your object from ICustomTypeDescriptor. The ICustomTypeDescriptor implementation can modify the property descriptors it returns and change the name of a property. To localize the description, create an attribute which derives from DescriptionAttribute and override the Description property.

Considerations in implementing the IConnection interface

1. IConnection provides access to an enumerator sub-object with the IEnumConnectionPoints interface. It also provides access to all the connection point sub-objects, each of which implements the IConnectionPoint interface.

2. Any browse object is responsible for implementing an IPropertyNotifySink event. The Properties window will advise for the event set through IConnection.

3. A connection point controls how many connections (one or more) it allows in its implementation of Advise. A connection point that allows only one interface can return E_NOTIMPL from the EnumConnections method.

4. A client can call the IConnection interface to obtain access to an enumerator sub-object with the IEnumConnectionPoints interface. The IEnumConnectionPoints interface can then be called to enumerate connection points for each outgoing interface ID (IID).

5. IConnection can also be called to obtain access to connection point sub-objects with the IConnectionPoint interface for each outgoing IID. Through the IConnectionPoint interface, a client starts or terminates an advisory loop with the connectable object and the client's own sync. The client can also call the IConnectionPoint interface to obtain an enumerator object with the IEnumConnections interface to enumerate the connections that it knows about.

Getting Field Descriptions from the Properties Window

At the bottom of the Properties window, a description area displays information related to the selected property field. This feature is turned on by default. If you want to hide the description field, right-click the Properties window and click Description. Doing so also removes the check mark next to the Description title in the menu window. You can display the field again by following the same steps to toggle Description back on.

The information in the description field comes from ITypeInfo. Each method, interface, coclass, and so on can have an unlocalized helpstring attribute in the type library. The Properties window retrieves the string from GetDocumentation.

To specify localized help strings

1. Add the helpstringdll attribute to the library statement in the type library (typelib).

   Note

   This step is optional if the type library is in an object library (.olb) file.

2. Specify helpstringcontext attributes for the strings. You can also specify helpstring attributes.

   These attributes are distinct from the helpfile and helpcontext attributes, which are contained in actual .chm file Help topics.

   To retrieve the description information to be displayed for the highlighted property name, the Properties window calls GetDocumentation2 for the property that is selected, specifying the desired lcid attribute for the output string. Internally, ITypeInfo2 finds the .dll file specified in the helpstringdll attribute and calls DLLGetDocumentation on that .dll file with the specified context and lcid attribute.

   The signature and implementation of DLLGetDocumentation are:

STDAPI DLLGetDocumentation
(
   ITypeLib * /* ptlib */,
   ITypeInfo * /* ptinfo */,
   LCID /* lcid */,
   DWORD dwCtx,
   BSTR * pbstrHelpString
);

The DLLGetDocumentation function must be an export defined in the .def file for the DLL.

Internally, an .olb file is created which is actually a DLL. This DLL contains one resource, the type library (.tlb) file, and one exported function, DLLGetDocumentation.

In the case of .olb files, the helpstringdll attribute is optional because it is the same file that contains the .tlb file itself.

To get strings to show up in the Descriptions pane, therefore, the minimum you have to do is specify the helpstring attribute in the type library. If you want those strings to be localized, you have to specify the helpstringdll (optional) attribute and the helpstringcontext (required) attribute and implement DLLGetDocumentation.

There are no additional interfaces that need to be implemented when getting localized information through idl's helpstringcontext attribute and DLLGetDocumentation.

Another way of obtaining the localized name and description of a property is by implementing GetLocalizedPropertyInfo. For more information relating to the implementation of this method, see Properties Window Fields and Interfaces.

See also

• Extending Properties