How to: Add Online Controls to the Toolbox

Visual Studio includes many default controls. If these controls do not meet your needs, you can search for additional controls online for use in Visual Studio.

Note

The options available in dialog boxes, and the names and locations of menu commands you see, might differ from what is described in Help depending on your active settings or edition. This Help page was written with General Development Settings in mind. To change your settings, choose Import and Export Settings on the Tools menu. For more information, see Visual Studio Settings.

Adding a control located online to the Toolbox includes the following steps:

1. Locating the control.

2. Installing the control so that it appears in the Choose Toolbox Items dialog box in Visual Studio.

3. Adding the control to the Toolbox from the Choose Toolbox Items dialog box.

Search for controls online

You can search for controls submitted to the developer community for use in Visual Studio.

To search for controls online

1. On the Community menu, click Community Search and then choose Controls.

   The Search page of Help appears, with the Controls option selected for the Topic Type filter.

2. In the text box, enter a keyword or name for the control you are searching for and then click Search.

   Matches are grouped by source and are displayed in the Search Results area.

3. Click on a result to display additional information for the control.

Install controls

Once you have located a control you intend to use, you can easily install the control so that it can be accessed from within Visual Studio.

To install a community control

1. On the Web page for the control, click the link to download the control.

2. Click Open to download and install the control at the same time.

   The Visual Studio Content Installer appears.

3. On the Welcome to the Visual Studio Content Installer Wizard page, select the items you intend to install and then choose Next.

   Security Note
   It is highly recommended that you read the information in Publisher Status to determine whether or not the control is signed. For further security, click Review to display a list of the files that will be installed on your computer.

   The Installing Content page appears.

4. On the Installation Complete page, click Finish.

Add the control to the Toolbox

Once the control has been installed, you can add the control to the Toolbox.

To add a community control to the Toolbox

1. On the Tools menu, click Choose Toolbox Items.

2. In the Choose Toolbox Items dialog box, select the appropriate tab and locate the newly installed control.

   —or—

   Click Browse to navigate to the location of the control.

3. Click OK.

See Also

Tasks

How to: Use a Starter Kit to Create a New Project
How to: Add Items Using Online Item Templates