Services

A service is a contract between two VSPackages. One VSPackage offers a specific set of interfaces for another VSPackage to consume. For example, Visual Studio offers the SVsActivityLog service to any VSPackage it loads. This service provides the IVsActivityLog interface, which can be used to write to the activity log. For more information, see How to: Write to the Activity Log (C#).

In This Section

• Service Essentials
  Presents the important elements of a Visual Studio service.

• Registering Services
  Explains how to register a global service.

• How to: Consume a Service
  Discusses how to request (consume) a service.

• How to: Provide a Service (C#)
  Discusses how to provide a service.

• How to: Troubleshoot Services
  Discusses common problems and presents solutions to them.

• How to: Use GetGlobalService
  Shows how to use GetGlobalService to obtain a service for a VSPackage that has not been sited, a tool window, or a control container.

• How to: Get a Service from a Background Thread (C++)
  Explains how to marshal a service into a stream so that it can be accessed by a background thread.

• How to: Get a Service from the DTE object (C#)
  Explains how to obtain a service from a program that has access to the Visual Studio Automation DTEClass object.

• List of Available Services
  Lists the most popular services.

• Services Used in Samples
  Lists popular services and the samples that contain them.

• Service Samples
  Services samples you can load in Visual Studio.

• Services Frequently Asked Questions
  Contains responses to questions and issues about services from the Visual Studio user community.

Related Sections

• Visual Studio Integration Architecture
  Describes Visual Studio and its IDE, and introduces strategies and techniques for extending the IDE.