Legacy Language Service Features

A managed package framework (MPF) language service can support one or more Visual Studio features, such as syntax highlighting, IntelliSense, and breakpoint validation. Each feature can be implemented independent of the others but all require a parser and a scanner except for syntax highlighting, which requires only a scanner.

In This Section

Brace Matching in a Legacy Language Service
Describes what is required to support language pair matching, also known as brace matching.

Commenting Code in a Legacy Language Service
Describes what is required to support commenting and uncommenting of selected code.

Custom Document Properties in a Legacy Language Service
Describes what is required to support document properties that are embedded in a source file.

Outlining in a Legacy Language Service
Describes what is required to support outlining through the implementation of hidden regions.

Reformatting Code in a Legacy Language Service
Describes what is required to support reformatting code.

Support for Code Snippets in a Legacy Language Service
Describes what is required to support code snippets, which are segments of code that are inserted and can be edited.

Parameter Info in a Legacy Language Service
Describes what is required to support the IntelliSense Parameter Info operation for displaying a method signature as the method is typed.

Quick Info in a Legacy Language Service
Describes what is required to support the IntelliSense Quick Info operation for displaying information about an identifier.

Member Completion in a Legacy Language Service
Describes what is required to support the IntelliSense Member Completion operation for selecting a member of a namespace from a list.

Word Completion in a Legacy Language Service
Describes what is required to support the IntelliSense Complete Word operation for completing partially typed words.

Support for the Autos Window in a Legacy Language Service
Describes what a language service can do to support the Autos window while you are debugging.

Support for the Navigation Bar in a Legacy Language Service
Describes how to use the Navigation bar across the top of the editor view to provide quick navigation to any type or member in the file shown in that view..

Syntax Colorizing in a Legacy Language Service
Describes what is required to support syntax highlighting of source code.

Validating Breakpoints in a Legacy Language Service
Describes what a language service can do to support validating breakpoints outside a debugger.

Related Sections

Legacy Language Service Parser and Scanner
Describes the parser and scanner that are required to implement all the features of a language service that uses the managed package framework.

Implementing a Legacy Language Service
Describes what is required to implement a language service by using the MPF.

Registering a Legacy Language Service
Describes the steps that are required to register an MPF-based language service with Visual Studio.

Using IntelliSense
Explains how IntelliSense makes language references easy to access.

Implementing a Legacy Language Service
Provides information about how to use the managed package framework (MPF) to implement a full-featured language service in managed code.