Inquiry Regarding Customizing Tooltip Presentation for Macro Expansions

Question

I am currently working on a development project that involves extensive use of macros, and I have found that the tooltips generated by the "Visualize Macro Expansion" feature do not always provide the desired level of readability and formatting for complex macro code. I would like to explore the option of customizing or improving the way these tooltips are displayed within the Visual Studio IDE to enhance the developer experience.

Specifically, I am interested in:

1. Adjusting the formatting and layout of tooltips for macro expansions.
2. Enhancing the readability of macro code displayed in tooltips. I understand that Visual Studio offers a wide range of extensibility options, and I wanted to inquire if there are any official APIs, extensions, or recommended approaches that would allow me to achieve the above-mentioned goals.

Additionally, I would like to know if it is possible to extract the tooltip text from the QuickInfo using a Visual Studio extension (VSIX) as an alternative solution, should the direct customization of tooltips not be feasible. Your guidance and recommendations in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

You can hack it using VSIX !

Implementing IAsyncQuickInfoSourceProvider or IQuickInfoSourceProvider called from MEF will posible detect when a ToolTip to be displayed.

QuickInfo popup is built with WPF, so it is possible to search for strings displayed with WPF technology.

using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.ComponentModel.Composition;
using System.Threading;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Media;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Language.Intellisense;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Threading;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Utilities;

namespace Gekka.VisualStudio.MacroToolTipInfoHack
{
    [Export(typeof(IAsyncQuickInfoSourceProvider))]
    [Name("ToolTip QuickInfo HackProvider")]
    [Order(Before = "Default Quick Info Presenter")]
    //[ContentType("text")]
    [ContentType("C/C++")]
    internal class HackInfoProvider : IAsyncQuickInfoSourceProvider
    {
        public HackInfoProvider()
        {
        }

        [Import] internal SVsServiceProvider ServiceProvider = null;
        [Import] internal JoinableTaskContext JoinableTaskContext = null;
        [Import] internal IContentTypeRegistryService ContentTypeRegistryService { get; set; }

        public IAsyncQuickInfoSource TryCreateQuickInfoSource(ITextBuffer textBuffer)
        {
            System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("Supprted ContentType's");
            foreach (var ct in ContentTypeRegistryService.ContentTypes)
            {
                System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine($"\t{ct.TypeName}");
            }

            return new HackInfoSource(this.JoinableTaskContext);
        }
    }

    internal class HackInfoSource : IAsyncQuickInfoSource
    {
        private JoinableTaskContext _JoinableTaskContext;

        public HackInfoSource(JoinableTaskContext context)
        {
            this._JoinableTaskContext = context;
        }

        public async Task<QuickInfoItem> GetQuickInfoItemAsync(IAsyncQuickInfoSession session, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
        {
            await _JoinableTaskContext.Factory.SwitchToMainThreadAsync(cancellationToken);

            cancellationToken.ThrowIfCancellationRequested();

            var textBlock = new System.Windows.Controls.TextBlock()
            {
                FontSize = 30.0,
                Foreground = Brushes.Red,
                Text = "I'm Hacking Now!!"
            };

            var grid = new System.Windows.Controls.Grid();
            grid.Children.Add(textBlock);
            grid.Loaded += grid_Loaded;

            return new QuickInfoItem(session.ApplicableToSpan, grid);
        }

        private static void grid_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            Grid grid = (System.Windows.Controls.Grid)sender;

            DependencyObject d = grid;
            while (d != null)
            {
                var parent = System.Windows.Media.VisualTreeHelper.GetParent(d);

                if (parent is ItemsControl items)
                {
                    foreach (object item in items.ItemsSource)
                    {
                        if (!object.ReferenceEquals(item, grid))
                        {
                            if (item is DependencyObject element)
                            {
                                DumpChild(element);
                            }
                            else
                            {
                                System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(item?.ToString());
                            }
                        }
                    }
                    break;
                }

                d = parent;
            }
        }

        private static void DumpChild(DependencyObject d, int lv = 0)
        {
            string typeName = d.GetType().Name;

            string text = null;
            switch (d)
            {
            case TextBox txb: text = $"Text={txb.Text}"; break;
            case TextBlock tb:

                System.Text.StringBuilder sb = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
                if (tb.Inlines.Count > 0)
                {
                    AddInlines(sb, tb.Inlines);
                    text = $"Text={sb.ToString()}";
                }
                else
                {
                    text = $"Text={tb.Text}";
                }

                break;
            case FrameworkElement fe:
                text = $"DataContext={fe.DataContext?.GetType().Name}";
                break;
            }

            System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine($"{new string('\t', lv)}{typeName};\t{text}");

            int childCount = VisualTreeHelper.GetChildrenCount(d);
            for (int i = 0; i < childCount; i++)
            {
                var child = VisualTreeHelper.GetChild(d, i);
                DumpChild(child, lv + 1);
            }
        }

        static void AddInlines(System.Text.StringBuilder sb, System.Windows.Documents.InlineCollection lines)
        {
            foreach (var inline in lines)
            {
                switch (inline)
                {
                case System.Windows.Documents.LineBreak lb: sb.Append("\\r\\n"); break;
                case System.Windows.Documents.Run run: sb.Append(run.Text); break;
                case System.Windows.Documents.Hyperlink link: AddInlines(sb, link.Inlines); break;
                case System.Windows.Documents.Span span: AddInlines(sb, span.Inlines); break;
                }
            }
        }
        #region IDisposable
        private bool disposedValue;

        protected virtual void Dispose(bool disposing)
        {
            if (!disposedValue)
            {
                disposedValue = true;
            }
        }

        public void Dispose()
        {
            Dispose(disposing: true);
            GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
        }
        #endregion
    }

}

Tutorial for MEF implement.