Deep Dive document download for the Options Page sample included in the VS SDK.
Introduction
Visual Studio provides a common mechanism to configure packages and to persist this configuration information. The key elements of this configuration feature are the so-called Options Pages. This reference sample in the VS SDK treats concept and implementation of this mechanism. After reading this paper you will get familiar with the following things:
What are the ways to define options pages?
How to extend the VS shell with package specific options pages?
How to persist information on these pages?
The Managed Package Framework shipped with VS SDK provides great and simple-to-use patterns to create and implement options pages.
To understand concepts treated here it is assumed that you are familiar with the idea of VSPackages and you know how to build and register very simple (even non-functional) packages. To get more information about packages, please take a look at the Package Reference Sample (C# Reference.Package sample).