CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#debuggingvisual-studio-2017debuggervisualizer
Arian Kulp
Arian Kulp

Reputation: 831

Display debuggers not showing up in Visual Studio 2017

I've been working on a display debugger for Visual Studio 2017, and everything builds fine, but it doesn't show up in the list of display debuggers for the type. I've tried debugging in a temp instance of VS and installing the VSIX manually. I've checked a few projects I've found online, and everything seems identical. What could cause this? My fear is it's a change with 2017 that isn't documented (the VS SDK Github project doesn't have display debugger samples, and the VS templates don't reference it either).

My project is a class library, .NET 4.6.1, Any CPU, Debug or Release

The simplest example still doesn't work, but here it is:

[assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(Test.TestVisualizer), typeof(VisualizerObjectSource),
    Target = typeof(System.String), Description = "Test Viz")]
namespace Test
{
    public class TestVisualizer : DialogDebuggerVisualizer
    {
        override protected void Show(IDialogVisualizerService windowService, IVisualizerObjectProvider objectProvider)
        {
            var str = objectProvider.GetObject()?.ToString();

            MessageBox.Show($"Value: {str}", "Visualizer");
        }
    }
}

UPDATE: I modified the project file to just save the output files in addition to the VSIX. It turns out, the VSIX didn't actually contain the DLL. When I copied the DLL files to the Documents/Visual Studio 2017/Visualizers folder it works. I guess I just need to figure out VSIX packaging!

Upvotes: 1

Views: 725

Answers (1)

Arian Kulp
Arian Kulp

Reputation: 831

Apparently the extension itself is fine. The issue is with VSIX packaging or activation of the actual visualizer. I'll create a new question for that.

[EDIT] It turns out that VSIX package installing cannot be used for managed debugger visualizers. No errors, but it simply will not work. The only way to install a managed debugger visualizer is to copy the files to your Visualizers folder (reference in original question). You can do this manually or with an MSI. This needs to be documented!

Upvotes: 3

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