ImageComments (a Visual Studio Extension)
Overview
This is an extension for the Visual Studio code editor that allows images to be displayed amongst code, allowing for visually rich comments. For example:
News
As of writing, this repo was still getting occasional interest, despite several years of inactivity. As there are now several alternatives offering more, I'll probably archive this project. Feel free to report new issues if the alternative's aren't an option for you, but I don't plan to develop any new features for it.
Alternatives
- Memeful comments. Based on this, but supports animated gifs, and JavaScript and TypeScript.
- DevExpress Code Rush introduced a Rich Comments feature in 2018.
- Other forks, which may have further developments. For example, TomSmartBishop/image-comments from which the VS Marketplace entry was made.
Usage Info
Supported Versions
Visual Studio 2019 (though earlier releases support 2010~2017).
Download/Installation
To install double-click/activate the VSIX file.
How to use
Image-comments are declared with:
/// <image url="X:\Path\To\Image.ext" scale="1.5" /> or /// <img src="X:\Path\To\Image.ext" scale="1.5" />
The optional scale attribute multiplies the source width and height (ranges from 0.01 to 100). Since 1.1.4.4 scaled images are anti aliased.
The optional opacity attribute is available since 1.1.4.4 (from 0.0 to 1.0):
/// <image url="..\Image.ext" opacity="0.6" />
// <image url="X:\Path\To\TransparentImage.png" bgcolor="ffffff" />
You can also specify the bgcolor attribute to set a background color for pictures with transparent areas, the color is specified as hex number: RRGGBB or RRGGBBAA, optionally you can use a short hand notation RGB.
You can use the VS environment variables
# <image url="$(SolutionDir)\CommonImages\Fourier.jpg" />
From 1.1.4.3 on you can also use relative paths (relative to the source file).
Images from URL will be downloaded and not updated as long as the file exists in the user temp directory.
Please note, if you use docfx at the same time, these environment variables must not be used, because docfx expects the images in a directory, e.g. "./images".
Images are displayed using the WPF Image control with a BitmapFrame source, and accepted image and URL formats are tied to those, e.g. BMP, PNG, JPG all work as image formats, and C:\Path\To\Image.png, http://www.server.com/image.png and \\server\folder\image.png all work as URLs.
If there's a problem trying to load the image or parse the tag, the tag will be squiggly-underlined and hovering over this will show the error, e.g.:
The languages currently supported are Python, C#, F#, C, C++ and VB.
Image-comments don't really have anything to do with XML comments, but the format is convenient and it should be pretty straight-forward to transform them for Sandcastle documentation creation.
The extension adds a command in the Tools menu to toggle image-comment display on or off.
Uninstallation
In VS, open the Extension Manager, select ImageComments, then click uninstall. A restart of VS is required.
Some known issues
- You need to scroll/'bump' the editor window to see the effect of the on/off toggle command.
Development Info
Requires: Visual Studio 2019 SDK
Build instructions
Providing the VS SDK is installed, you should be able to build by opening the solution and hitting F6. Debugging has to be configured manually - On the Project Properties->Debug tab, choose 'Start External Program' and command line e.g. (if using default install location) 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 16.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe' with arguments '/rootsuffix Exp'. The 'Release' build configuration copies the .vsix package into the Solution's .\Output directory.
Program structure
It's a very small project and may be fairly self explanatory if you are familiar with Visual Studio editor extensions. There are two components to the extension:
- ImageCommentsEditorComponent. Contains 97% of the functionality.
- ImageCommentsPackage. Adds a command to enable/disable functionality; VSIX definition.
For testing information, see .\Testing\Testing.html
License
Eclipse Public License v1.0. See license text for details.
Authors & Contributors
Luke McQuade (creator), Thomas Pollak, Lionsoft, Oleg Kosmakov, Morten Engelhardt Olsen, Wolfgang Kleinschmit, SΓΆren Nils Kuklau, Tim Long, [your name here]