Is there a way to override Visual Studio Keybindings in extension?

[aglasencnik]

I am wondering if there is a way of overriding default Visual Studio Keybinding behaviours in my extension?

Basically I am developing an extension and I have quite a lot of keybindings set. But because of safety all of them have a "prefix" keys which come before the actual keys eg. Ctrl + Shift + Alt + E (prefix) then Ctrl + D.

I would want to remove those "prefix" keys, so I would just have the actual keys like Ctrl + D, I thought if I could check if those were pressed or something and if my action/command did some stuff then the default behaviour wouldn't go through, and if my extensions action doesn't go through it must do the default behaviour.

Is there any way to achieve this?

[madskristensen]

I haven't found a way to change existing keybindings from an extension, unfortunately.

[aglasencnik]

Hi, thanks for your reply... I wouldn't change them, I would just intercept the call...
Dont you have something similar in your ZenCoding extension? You listen for the Tab key...

[madskristensen]

Ahh, yes you can intercept either an existing command and take it over, or you can listen to a keypress

[aglasencnik]

Ok cool so it is possible? Would you mind sharing an example of how to do something like that? I think listening for keypresses would be a better option for me as I in intercepting existing commands I wouldn't really know which to intercept if you know what I mean or what do you think would be better in my case? In listening for the keypresses can I listen and get a combination (eg. Ctrl + D)? I would really appreciate it if you'd provide me with anything to help me achieve this, as this is my first extension and I think it could be quite useful to a lot of people.

[madskristensen]

If you have an editor extension, then you can listen for key presses, but if it should be global, then you need to take over a command.

To take over a command, use this method:

VS.Commands.InterceptAsync()

To listen for keystrokes in the editor, see this https://github.com/madskristensen/Surrounder/blob/e2aefe27cf806f7a3a37568b57a475579768094b/src/InsertTextCommand.cs#L16

[aglasencnik]

Ok, should I have the keybindings set anyways in the .vsct file?
Also in the keystrokes example I dont understand where you check it.... I looked through the code

[madskristensen]

For the keystrokes, you check it like this: https://github.com/madskristensen/Surrounder/blob/e2aefe27cf806f7a3a37568b57a475579768094b/src/InsertTextCommand.cs#L37

No, you don't need .vsct to intercept a command

[aglasencnik]

@RobertvanderHulst, unfortunately that isn't the case here... As I still can't understand how when I tested Mads' ZenCoding extension in debugging the key handling worked (for Tab... I would need Ctrl and keys), but when I created almost the same in mine it didn't work....

[RobertvanderHulst]

@aglasencnik The way that I understand it, the RegisterCommandsAsync (extension) method of the AsyncPackage class checks for all types that inherit from BaseCommand<T> and call the initializeAsync method to create an object of these types.

[aglasencnik]

@RobertvanderHulst yes but my command is not the issue here... I want to implement keybinding overrides then I will do stuff with the commands

[aglasencnik]

Ok so update... I found out that I have to add an asset the project to MefComponent in manifest file... Now the handler for Tab works... BUT I still somehow need to find a way to work with key combinations like Ctrl + D, Ctrl + Shift + Up arrow,....

[aglasencnik]

Another update.... I have an idea on how to process and check if the keys are pressed (example code is below):

using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Commanding;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Editor.Commanding.Commands;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Text.Editor;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.Utilities;
using System.ComponentModel.Composition;

namespace AdvancedKeyBindingsTest;

[Export(typeof(ICommandHandler))]
[Name(nameof(HandleKeyPress))]
[ContentType(ContentTypes.Text)]
[TextViewRole(PredefinedTextViewRoles.PrimaryDocument)]
internal class HandleKeyPress : ICommandHandler<TypeCharCommandArgs>
{
    public string DisplayName => Vsix.Name;

    public bool ExecuteCommand(TypeCharCommandArgs args, CommandExecutionContext executionContext)
    {
        var modifiers = System.Windows.Input.Keyboard.Modifiers;
        var isCtrlPressed = (modifiers & System.Windows.Input.ModifierKeys.Control) != 0;
        var isShiftPressed = (modifiers & System.Windows.Input.ModifierKeys.Shift) != 0;

        if (isCtrlPressed && isShiftPressed && args.TypedChar == 'I')
        {
            return true;
        }

        return false;
    }

    public CommandState GetCommandState(TypeCharCommandArgs args)
    {
        return CommandState.Available;
    }
}

But there is now another problem... It doesn't override the other commands which have Ctrl key in them.... So basically everything with Ctrl doesn't work... Any ideas on what I can do?