HOWTO: Locate commandbars in international versions of Visual Studio

Author:	Carlos J. Quintero (Microsoft MVP)	Applies to:	Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2002
Date:	January 2007		Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003
Updated:	May 2011		Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
			Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
			Microsoft Visual Studio 2010

Introduction

The CommandBar class has two properties, Name and NameLocal, that expose its English name and the localized name. The CommandBarControl class has a Caption that is always localized but the CommandBar.Controls collection does not allow you to locate a CommandBarControl by its (unlocalized) English Name to get its associated CommandBarPopup (if any).

This article explains how to locate commandbars using only the English name in international versions of Visual Studio which can have localized names.

More Information

There are two cases in which you may want to locate a commandbar by name:

You want to locate a commandbar from the DTE.CommandBars collection. In this case you can use the English name when calling DTE.CommandBars.Item(commandbarEnglishName) to locate the commandbar since that method works in all international versions of Visual Studio. When you create a VB.NET add-in for Visual Studio 2005 using the wizard and you specify that you want an item under the "Tools" menu, notice that the wizard creates this code correctly using "MenuBar" instead of a localized name (such as "Barra de menús" in Spanish):
```
Dim commandBars As CommandBars = CType(_applicationObject.CommandBars, CommandBars)
Dim menuBarCommandBar As CommandBar = commandBars.Item("MenuBar")
```

You want to locate a commandbar popup, such as the "Tools" menu. The code that the wizard generates in this case is the following:

Dim toolsMenuName As String
Try

   Dim resourceManager As System.Resources.ResourceManager = _
      New System.Resources.ResourceManager("MyAddin.CommandBar", _
      System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly())

   Dim cultureInfo As System.Globalization.CultureInfo = _
      New System.Globalization.CultureInfo(_applicationObject.LocaleID)
   toolsMenuName = resourceManager.GetString(String.Concat(cultureInfo.TwoLetterISOLanguageName, "Tools"))

Catch e As Exception
   toolsMenuName = "Tools"
End Try

Dim commandBars As CommandBars = CType(_applicationObject.CommandBars, CommandBars)
Dim menuBarCommandBar As CommandBar = commandBars.Item("MenuBar")

Dim toolsControl As CommandBarControl = menuBarCommandBar.Controls.Item(toolsMenuName)
Dim toolsPopup As CommandBarPopup = CType(toolsControl, CommandBarPopup)

The approach used by the wizard requires a CommandBar.resx resource file with localized names for every Visual Studio international version. A more simple and robust approach is shown here, which gets the commandbar associated to a CommandBarControl using only English names, it doesn't require the CommandBar.resx file and it works in all international versions of Visual Studio:

Dim objMenuBarCommandBar As CommandBar
Dim objToolsCommandBar As CommandBar
Dim objCommandBarControl As CommandBarControl
Dim objCommandBarPopup As CommandBarPopup

objMenuBarCommandBar = _applicationObject.CommandBars.Item("MenuBar")

For Each objCommandBarControl In objMenuBarCommandBar.Controls

   If objCommandBarControl.Type = MsoControlType.msoControlPopup Then

      objCommandBarPopup = DirectCast(objCommandBarControl, CommandBarPopup)

      If objCommandBarPopup.CommandBar.Name = "Tools" Then ' English name

         objToolsCommandBar = objCommandBarPopup.CommandBar

         Exit For

      End If

   End If

Next

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