New Project Type or SubType?   

Hi All,

I'm rather confused. I thought I had such simple aims, but each alley
I go down seems to lead to different dead ends.

I'm working in .Net, and I'm wanting to add a new type of file to
projects. This file will eventually spit out some code (in C#/VB/etc),
via something similar to the SingleFileGenerator, but I need to
control the process by which the SingleFileGenerator is invoked.

I initially started by creating a new project type using the Managed
Package Framework. However, I found that as I started working on this,
I was trying to fathom how the entire VB build system works and
reproduce it in my new project type (first one I was targetting was VB
+ my file) - it was going to take an age.

So I started looking again, and considering creating instead a project
subtype. Looks okay, and I've looked at the project subtype sample
that used to ship with the 2005 SDK, and I've managed to get as far as
changing the icon for my file. Woooooo!

However, when it comes to wanting to do more (like take complete
control of what actions are available for this file type, what's
appearing in the property grid, etc), I can't seem to find my way in.
I thought about maybe intercepting the call for the Browse Object, and
I think I'd want to return something derived from the MPF
NodeProperties class - but the MPF seems to be full of cross
references that assume a hierarchy starting with something derived
from ProjectNode - and I don't seem to have one of those anymore, now
I've switched to the aggregate project.

I've not had much luck searching online for projects that combine MPF
and project SubTyping - do I have to abandon all of those facilities
if I just subtype? And if so, what should I be doing to get control of
the node that represents my file? And then deal with the fact that
child nodes of this node will be from the general project system and
not MPF derived again.

Or was there a way I could have continued with the completely new
project type but get most of the VB facilities available? (Similar
questions will apply for other project types such as C#)

Any pointers in the right direction would be much appreciated

Thanks for reading this far

Damien

date: Wed, 21 May 2008 06:13:37 -0700 (PDT)   author:   Damien