Abstract: An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is provided which comprises a visual designer that supports at least two avenues of extension. First, the visual designer may be extended with entirely new features by adding a visual designer extension. The visual designer extension is a deriving class of an extension server object. The extension server object may be provided along with the IDE. The visual designer extension manages a list of extension objects, and exposes a service provider to such extension objects. The visual designer extension can request and publish services through the service provider. Second, the visual designer may be extended with new variations of existing features by adding additional extension objects that derive from, and are managed by, an existing visual designer extension. These two modes of extension are supported by a novel visual designer framework described herein.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer program products for centrally managing user interface state information for a visual user interface development tool. Component and development tool behavior is centralized in a behavior service that allows behaviors to be defined at development time. The behavior service catches messages that are generated within the visual user interface development tool and routes the message to determine behaviors available within the development tool. If a suitable behavior is available, the behavior is used to process the message. Similar to behaviors, during development time the behavior service may store one or more glyphs with corresponding glyph behavior for a component within the development tool. These glyphs are capable of hit testing and painting themselves, and may be organized into one or more adorner layers that can be independently disabled and enabled.

Abstract: An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is provided which comprises a visual designer that supports at least two avenues of extension. First, the visual designer may be extended with entirely new features by adding a visual designer extension. The visual designer extension is a deriving class of an extension server object. The extension server object may be provided along with the IDE. The visual designer extension manages a list of extension objects, and exposes a service provider to such extension objects. The visual designer extension can request and publish services through the service provider. Second, the visual designer may be extended with new variations of existing features by adding additional extension objects that derive from, and are managed by, an existing visual designer extension. These two modes of extension are supported by a novel visual designer framework described herein.

Abstract: A visual code designer is provided that allows a user to manipulate control objects on a common design surface. Each control object has extensible snaplines that define alignment characteristics for the control. The snaplines are extensible in that a developer can define and/or specify matching and alignment criteria such as type, filter and offset information. Further, the visual code designer assists the user in positioning a control on the common design surface by automatically aligning the control during design-time without the use of gridlines.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer program products for centrally managing user interface state information for a visual user interface development tool. Component and development tool behavior is centralized in a behavior service that allows behaviors to be defined at development time. The behavior service catches messages that are generated within the visual user interface development tool and routes the message to determine behaviors available within the development tool. If a suitable behavior is available, the behavior is used to process the message. Similar to behaviors, during development time the behavior service may store one or more glyphs with corresponding glyph behavior for a component within the development tool. These glyphs are capable of hit testing and painting themselves, and may be organized into one or more adorner layers that can be independently disabled and enabled.

Abstract: A visual code designer is provided that allows a user to manipulate control objects on a common design surface. Each control object has extensible snaplines that define alignment characteristics for the control. The snaplines are extensible in that a developer can define and/or specify matching and alignment criteria such as type, filter and offset information. Further, the visual code designer assists the user in positioning a control on the common design surface by automatically aligning the control during design-time without the use of gridlines.