Obtain Components in Runtime

Examples

ReSharper uses the loosely coupled design. ReSharper's component model provides the ability to live load and unload new components, during runtime.

Typically, you as a plugin developer should use only shell and solution components:

Shell components have the same lifetime as ReSharper and are marked with the ShellComponent attribute.
Solution components have the same lifetime with a solution, thus, they are created once a solution is loaded and terminated once the solution is closed. Solution components should be marked with the SolutionComponent attribute.

So, how could you obtain your own or ReSharper components in runtime? Let's take a look at the most common scenarios.

Constructor injection

The easiest way is to use a constructor injection. All you need is to specify the required component as a constructor argument. ReSharper will care about all the dependencies on its own.

For example, you have a solution component MyClass that should run some action upon creation. To make this happen, it must obtain an ActionManager instance.

[SolutionComponent]
public class MyClass
{
    public MyClass(Lifetime lifetime, IActionManager actionManager)
    {
        actionManager.ExecuteAction<SomeAction>());
    }
}

Here SomeAction is action's name.

Current context

Sometimes, you can get components from the IDataContext objects. This is true, for example, for actions:

protected override void RunAction(IDataContext context, DelegateExecute nextExecute)
{
    var actionManager = context.GetComponent<IActionManger>();
    ...
 }

Shell and solution component

Another way is to get shell components via the Shell component - the root API point. This can be helpful, for example, if you want to have some "global" settings and access them from anywhere inside your plugin. To obtain the Shell instance, you must use its Instance property.

[ShellComponent]
public class MySettings
{
    public bool AutoRefresh { get; set; }
 
    public MySettings()
    {
        AutoRefresh = true;
    }
 
    public static MySettings Instance
    {
        get { return Shell.Instance.GetComponent<MySettings>(); }
    }
}

Thus, you can simply access them from any point of your plugin:

if (MySettings.Instance.AutoRefresh) ...

Same is true for solution components. The main difference is that you should have an object that implements the ISolution interface (the one that refers to the solution currently opened in Visual Studio):

public void ObtainSomeSolutionComponent(ISolution solution)
{
    var component = solution.GetComponent<SomeSolutionComponent>();
}
 
...
 
[SolutionComponent]
public class SomeSolutionComponent {}

Last modified: 04 July 2023