How do I implement intellisense support for a cust

Question

I have just started writing my first language for the .NET DLR.

I would like to know if it is possible to extend Visual Studio 2008 IntelliSense to handle the syntax of a custom DLR language?

EDIT: I have decided to bypass VS2008 and target VS2010 instead. See accepted answer for more information.

Answer 1

Visual Studio's primary extensibility method for supporting new languages is through Language Services in a VSPackage.

Visual Studio 2010 has radically improved the ability to support a new language, but if target your extension to it you will not be able to use it in older versions. If you write a language service for Visual Studio 2008, you'll be able to use it with Visual Studio 2010 as well. Unless you have some strong financial ties to supporting Visual Studio 2008, definitely skip it and go for 2010.

Here is the best public link I know of right now:

• Django Editor in VS 2010 – Part 1 (Colors) (This is the first entry of a 7-part series on his blog.)

I'm working on a new set of articles about support for Visual Studio 2010, but they aren't ready yet, and likely won't be for a while. :\ If you decide to go with a Visual Studio 2008 language service, I have several entries on my blog on the subject.