ThisAssembly.Vsix 2.0.3

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Allows consuming VSIX manifest properties from code, as well as MSBuild project properties from the VSIX manifest. For example:

And in the source.extension.vsixmanifest:

<PackageManifest Version="2.0.0" ...>
  <Metadata>
    
    <Identity Id="|%CurrentProject%;VsixId|" Version="|%CurrentProject%;VsixVersion|" Language="|%CurrentProject%;VsixLanguage|" Publisher="|%CurrentProject%;VsixPublisher|" />
    <DisplayName>|%CurrentProject%;VsixDisplayName|</DisplayName>
    <Description>|%CurrentProject%;VsixDescription|</Description>
  </Metadata>
  ...
</PackageManifest>

As shown above, in addition to making the VSIX manifest metadata properties available as constants, the package also provides targets for those properties with sensible defaults from project properties so that the manifest can leverage placeolder syntax and avoid duplication.

The available properties and their default values are:

As shown in the example above, the syntax for using these properties from the source.extension.vsixmanifest is |%CurrentProject%;[PROPERTY]|. This is because the package defines a corresponding target to retrieve each of the above properties. You can provide a different value for each property via MSBuild as usual, of course.

Since the $(PackageId) property can be used as the VSIX ID, the Pack target is redefined to mean CreateVsixManifest, so "packing" the VSIX is just a matter of right-clicking the VSIX project and selecting "Pack".

Customizing the generated code

Set the $(ThisAssemblyNamespace) MSBuild property to set the namespace of the generated ThisAssembly root class. Otherwise, it will be generated in the global namespace.

The generated root ThisAssembly class is partial and has no visibility modifier by default, making it internal by default in C#.

You can set the $(ThisAssemblyVisibility) MSBuild property to public to make it public. This will also change all constants to be static readonly properties instead.

Default:

partial class ThisAssembly
{
    public partial class Constants
    {
        public const string Hello = "World";
    }
}

In this case, the compiler will inline the constants directly into the consuming code at the call site, which is optimal for performance for the common usage of constants.

Public:

public partial class ThisAssembly
{
    public partial class Constants
    {
        public static string Hello => "World";
    }
}

This makes it possible for consuming code to remain unchanged and not require a recompile when the the values of ThisAssembly are changed in a referenced assembly.

If you want to keep the properties as constants, you can instead extend the generated code by defining another partial that can modify its visibility as needed (or add new members).

// makes the generated class public
public partial ThisAssembly 
{
    // Nested classes are always public since the outer class 
    // already limits their visibility
    partial class Constants 
    {
        // add some custom constants
        public const string MyConstant = "This isn't configurable via MSBuild";

        // generated code will remain as constants
    }
}

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