The Ice Visual Studio Add-in manages all aspects of code generation for C++ and .NET projects, including automatically recompiling Slice files that have changed, removing obsolete generated files, and tracking dependencies.

On this page:

Activating the Add-in for a Visual Studio Project

Right-click on the project in the Solution Explorer and choose Ice Configuration... or select Ice Configuration... in the Tools menu. This opens a dialog that allows you to configure the project settings for Ice.

Note that, after adding new configurations or platforms to your project, it may be necessary to disable and then re-enable the add-in for the new configuration or platform to get the correct Ice settings.

Configuring Project Settings for Visual Studio

The following settings are available:

Enable Ice Builder
This box must be checked to enable the Ice Builder in your project.

Trace Level
You can change the verbosity of messages printed to the Output panel by selecting a different trace level, where Errors Only is less verbose and Debug is more verbose.

Output directory for generated files
Set the base directory where generated files will be placed.

Slice compiler options
Tick the corresponding check boxes to pass --tie (.NET only), --ice, --checksum, or --stream options to the Slice compiler.

Additional Slice compiler options
Enter extra Slice compiler options not supported by Slice compiler options. These options are entered the same as they would be on the command line. For example, you can define preprocessor macros by entering -DFoo -DBAR.

Macro for exporting symbols from DLL (C++ only)
The macro for annotating generated code to mark symbols that should be exported from a shared library or DLL, equivalent to the compiler option --dll-export.

Slice include directories
The list of directories to search for included Slice files (-I option). The checkbox for each path controls whether the path is passed to the -I option as an absolute path or as a path relative to the project directory.

The add-in automatically adds the main slice directory of your Ice installation to this list.

Link project with these additional libraries (C++ only)
Every Ice project is linked with the Ice and IceUtil libraries. You can link with additional Ice libraries by checking the appropriate boxes.

Add references to the following assemblies (.NET only)
Every Ice project references the Ice assembly. You can reference additional Ice assemblies by checking the appropriate boxes.

Using Environment Variables in Visual Studio Settings

You can include references to environment variables in the settings for Output directory for generated files, Additional Slice compiler options, and Slice include directories. To do this, the environment variable must be entered using the format $(VAR). For example, for Slice include directories you could use $(MY_PATH).

You cannot use environment variables in the --header-ext and --source-ext options in Additional Slice compiler options.

Adding Slice Files to a Visual Studio Project

Use Add -> New Item... and select Slice File (.ice) as the template to create and add a Slice file to a project. To add an existing Slice file to a project, use Add -> Existing Item...

Generating Code for a Visual Studio Project

The add-in compiles a Slice file whenever you save the file. The add-in tracks dependencies among Slice files in the project and, after a change, recompiles only the affected files.

Generated files are automatically added to the project. For example, for Demo.ice, the add-in for C++ adds Demo.cpp and Demo.h to the project, whereas the add-in for .NET adds Demo.cs to the project.

Slice compilation errors are displayed in the Visual Studio Output and Error List panels.

How the Add-in Locates your Ice Installation

The add-in derives the location of your Ice installation from the location of its own DLL. For example, if the add-in's DLL is installed in C:\Ice\vsaddin then the add-in uses C:\Ice as the top-level Ice installation directory. The add-in uses this top-level directory to compose the path names of other subdirectories, such as C:\Ice\slice as the location of the Slice files included in your Ice distribution, C:\Ice\bin as the location of the Slice compilers, and so on.

`$(IceHome)` Macro

The add-in makes extensive use of the $(IceHome) macro in C++ projects. $(IceHome) provides the full path to the home directory of the Ice installation on the local computer. This macro may be used in user settings, for example to locate slice2freeze.exe (as $(IceHome)\bin\slice2freeze.exe) or the Ice Slice directory (as $(IceHome)\slice).

This macro is set through a Visual Studio C++ property sheet installed as part of the Ice installation on Windows, %AllUsersProfile%\ZeroC\ice.vsprops for Visual Studio 2008 and %AllUsersProfile%\ZeroC\ice.props for Visual Studio 2010.

.NET DEVPATH support

The add-in detects if a .NET project is configured for development mode by inspecting the <application-name>.exe.config file. If a project is in development mode, the Ice bin directory is automatically added to the DEVPATH environment variable when the demo is run. References to Ice components are also set with Copy Local to false to avoid copying Ice assemblies to the project's output directory. Note that the Copy Local setting is not changed for references that are already added to the project.

Command-line Builds using Visual Studio

The add-in supports command-line builds using devenv. For example:

devenv MyProject.sln /build

Note that for this to work, command-line builds must be enabled for the add-in in the IDE; see Tools -> Add-in Manager and check Command Line for Ice.