Editor Imports

You can import a number of editor services, factories, and brokers that provide your extension with different kinds of access to the core editor. For example, you can import the ITextStructureNavigatorSelectorService to provide you with a ITextStructureNavigator for a given content type. (This navigator allows you perform different kinds of searches on a text buffer.)

To use an editor import, you import it as a field or property of a class that exports a Managed Extensibility Framework component part.

Import Syntax

The following example shows how to import the editor options factory service.

[Import]  
internal IEditorOptionsFactoryService EditorOptions { get; set; }  

If you want to import the service as a field and not a property, you should set it to null in the declaration in order to avoid the compiler warnings about not assigning to a variable:

[Import]  
internal IEditorOptionsFactoryService m_editorOptions = null;  

For more examples of using imports, see the following walkthroughs:

Walkthrough: Creating a Margin Glyph

Walkthrough: Customizing the Text View

Walkthrough: Highlighting Text

Walkthrough: Displaying QuickInfo Tooltips

Walkthrough: Displaying Signature Help

Walkthrough: Displaying Statement Completion

Walkthrough: Displaying SmartTags

Importing the Service Provider

You can also import a SVsServiceProvider (found in the assembly Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Immutable.10.0) in the same way to get access to Visual Studio services:

[Import]  
internal SVsServiceProvider ServiceProvider = null;   

See Walkthrough: Accessing the DTE Object from an Editor Extension for more information.

Services

Editor services are generally single entities that provide a service and are shared across multiple components.

Other Imports

Provider factories and brokers are generally entities that can have multiple instances in multiple components.

See Also

Language Service and Editor Extension Points