How do I add a sub menu to the WinForms Designer right-click menu in Visual Studio 2022?

[pkfox]

I'm developing a Visual Studio 2022 Community VSIX Project (Community Visual Studio Toolkit) targeting .NET Framework 4.8.
I would like to extend the existing WinForms Designer right click context menu.

Is there a way to do this ?

[junkerderprovinz]

The designer's right-click menus are regular command table menus, so you can parent your own group to them in your VSCommandTable.vsct. Right-clicking a control opens IDM_IF_CTXT_SELECTION (0x0500) and right-clicking the form itself opens IDM_IF_CTXT_CONTAINER (0x0501), both under the GUID {74D21312-2AEE-11d1-8BFB-00A0C90F26F7}; these match MenuCommands.SelectionMenu and ContainerMenu in the WinForms designer, and you can see the full definition in tools/VSSDK/inc/Menus.vsct inside the Microsoft.VSSDK.BuildTools package. For the sub menu, add a Menu of type Menu to your group, give it a group of its own and parent your buttons to that inner group (the CommandPlacement adds the same entry to the form's menu):

<Menus>
  <Menu guid="MyPackage" id="MySubMenu" type="Menu" priority="0x0100">
    <Parent guid="MyPackage" id="MyDesignerGroup" />
    <Strings><ButtonText>My Tools</ButtonText></Strings>
  </Menu>
</Menus>
<Groups>
  <Group guid="MyPackage" id="MyDesignerGroup" priority="0x0600">
    <Parent guid="guidWinformsMenuGroup" id="IDM_IF_CTXT_SELECTION" />
  </Group>
  <Group guid="MyPackage" id="MySubMenuGroup" priority="0x0100">
    <Parent guid="MyPackage" id="MySubMenu" />
  </Group>
</Groups>
<!-- your Buttons use <Parent guid="MyPackage" id="MySubMenuGroup" /> -->

<!-- after </Commands> -->
<CommandPlacements>
  <CommandPlacement guid="MyPackage" id="MyDesignerGroup" priority="0x0600">
    <Parent guid="guidWinformsMenuGroup" id="IDM_IF_CTXT_CONTAINER" />
  </CommandPlacement>
</CommandPlacements>

<!-- in <Symbols> -->
<GuidSymbol name="guidWinformsMenuGroup" value="{74D21312-2AEE-11d1-8BFB-00A0C90F26F7}">
  <IDSymbol name="IDM_IF_CTXT_SELECTION" value="0x0500" />
  <IDSymbol name="IDM_IF_CTXT_CONTAINER" value="0x0501" />
</GuidSymbol>

These are the menus of the in-process designer that .NET Framework projects use (the newest SDK copy of Menus.vsct calls them legacy), so check separately if you also design forms in .NET 6+ projects.

[pkfox]

@junkerderprovinz
You are a star thank you very much