External issues

This is a list of issues I've come up against while developing visualizers.

Value-type values aren't passed along to the debuggee side, or cause the debugged program to crash

• https://github.com/zspitz/DateTimeVisualizer/issues/7
• DeveloperCommunity report
• StackOverflow question

Reading the expression with the object being visualized

It would be nice to know within the visualizer what expression is being visualized. We could then easily create expressions that could be pasted into the Watch window. We're currently working around this by prompting the user for the expression when needed.

Links

• https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/idea/503782/api-for-visualized-expression-in-custom-visualizer.html
  Closed! -- "We are unable to investigate this issue as we prioritize all incoming feedback based on their breadth of community impact."
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/54749716/visualized-expression-in-custom-data-visualizer

Other information about the debuggee environment in the visualizer

It would be nice to know some details about the debuggee environment:

• The current language of the source
• The current assembly
• The current file and line number

Links

• https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/idea/726810/api-for-visualizers-on-debuggee-environment.html
  As of Sept. 2019 "Your suggestion has been queued up for prioritization. Feature suggestions are prioritized based on the value to our broader developer community and the product roadmap. We may not be able to pursue this one immediately, but we will continue to monitor it up to 90 days for community input." Since then, crickets.
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/55954016/detect-source-language-at-runtime-from-within-debugging-visualizer

Better deployment story for visualizers

Currently, visualizers need to be downloaded or compiled from source and pasted into one of two folders; unlike extensions which can be added directly from within Visual Studio.

Because the visualizer isn't installed like regular extensions, the user isn't notified in VS of new versions of the visualizer.

It is possible to create an installer and upload that to the VS marketplace, and thus make use of VS upload notifications. But this is suboptimal. It also means that the visualizer cannot be upgraded directly from Visual Studio, nor by the extension manager that comes up when all instances of VS are closed.

Links

• https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/idea/463047/enable-custom-visualizer-authors-to-wrap-them-in-v.html
  Closed! -- "Not among the features we are able to fit into the near future roadmap."