ToolWindow class

A dockable / floating IDE pane whose contents are rendered as HTML. Created by ToolWindows.Add; the addin populates its DOM through the RootDomElement — an HtmlElement at the root of the pane — and shows the pane by setting Visible = True (tool windows start out invisible).

Private WithEvents myWindow As ToolWindow

Private Sub Button1_OnClick()
    Set myWindow = Host.ToolWindows.Add("MyAddIn.MyWindow", "MyAddIn.MyWindowPosition")
    With myWindow
        .Title = "Hello from My AddIn"
        With .RootDomElement
            .Properties.suggestedWidth  = "400px"
            .Properties.suggestedHeight = "300px"
            With .ChildDomElements.Add("greeting", "h1")
                .Properties.innerText = "Hello, world!"
            End With
        End With
        .Visible = True
    End With
End Sub

Use the WithEvents reference to receive OnClose when the user dismisses the pane — typically the addin uses that event to release any per-window state (timers, references to DOM elements …).

• Tool-window default member — jQuery-style child lookup
• Suggested initial size
• Properties
• Methods
• Events

Tool-window default member — jQuery-style child lookup

RootDomElement is the DefaultMember of the ToolWindow interface — so myToolWindow.(...) is equivalent to myToolWindow.RootDomElement.Properties.(...). Because HtmlElementProperties is [COMExtensible(True)], a string passed in parenthesis-syntax is resolved against the DOM at run time. The IDE treats CSS-style selectors specially, so:

' Find the descendant element whose id is "dataEntry" and read its .Value:
Dim entered As String = myToolWindow("#dataEntry").Value

Useful for grabbing a single child element by ID without holding a separate As HtmlElement reference for it.

Suggested initial size

RootDomElement accepts .Properties.suggestedWidth and .Properties.suggestedHeight (CSS-length strings like "400px"). These are one-shot hints — used the first time the tool window opens as a floating pane; once the user resizes (or after position persistence kicks in through ToolWindows.Add’s persistence ID), the IDE remembers the user’s chosen size and the suggested values are ignored.

Note

Set suggestedWidth / suggestedHeight before the first time the pane becomes visible. If the pane has previously been opened by this user (and a persistence ID was supplied to ToolWindows.Add), the IDE-remembered size wins.

• TOC

Properties

Name

The internal name supplied to ToolWindows.Add. String, read-only.

Resizable

Whether the user is allowed to resize the pane. Boolean, read / write. Default True.

Syntax: toolWindow.Resizable [ = value ]

RootDomElement

The root HtmlElement of the pane’s DOM. DefaultMember — see Tool-window default member above.

Syntax: toolWindow.RootDomElement As HtmlElement

Title

The pane’s title-bar text. String, read / write. Update at any time to reflect changing state (selection counts, dirty markers, …).

Syntax: toolWindow.Title [ = value ]

Visible

Whether the pane is shown. Boolean, read / write. Default False — newly-created tool windows are invisible until the addin sets this to True.

Syntax: toolWindow.Visible [ = value ]

Methods

ApplyCss

Injects a <style> block into the pane’s DOM that applies to every element inside the pane. Useful for global CSS — class selectors, custom-element styling, hover effects — that would be awkward to set element-by-element through HtmlElementProperties.

Syntax: toolWindow.ApplyCss styles

styles

required The CSS text. String.

' Load CSS from an embedded resource:
Dim css As String = StrConv(LoadResData("styles.css", "STYLESHEETS"), VbStrConv.vbFromUTF8)
myToolWindow.ApplyCss css

Close

Closes the pane. The matching OnClose event fires before the call returns.

Syntax: toolWindow.Close

Events

OnClose

Fires when the pane is closed — either by the user dismissing it or by the addin calling Close. Use this to release any per-window state (timers, references to DOM elements, …).

Syntax: toolWindow_OnClose()